Defending champion Simona Halep of Romania and Garbine Muguruza of Spain lost in the second round of the Dubai Tennis Championships on Wednesday to leave the tournament without any of its eight seeded players.
Top-seeded Halep was ousted by former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic of Serbia 7-6 (2), 6-2, while second-seeded Muguruza was upset by Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Fourth-seeded Petra Kvitova also lost on Wednesday night to American Madison Brengle 0-6, 7-6 (1), 6-3.
Third-ranked Halep had a set point at 40-30 when serving at 5-4 for the first set, but netted a backhand to squander the opportunity. The 17th-ranked Ivanovic broke Halep’s serve in the first game of the second set to secure a path to the Dubai quarterfinals for a fourth time in her career.
Sara Errani of Italy advanced to the semifinals with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Madison Brengle of the US.
Paes-Chardy advance to QF
Delray Beach (USA): Indian tennis veteran leander Paes along with his French partner Jeremy Chardy stormed into the quarter-finals of the Delray Beach Open with a straight-set win here.
The unseeded Indo-French pair took an hour and 12 minutes to get the better of fourth seeded American combination of Eric Butorac and Scott lipsky 6-4, 7-5 at the Delray Beach Tennis Center.
Elsewhere, Mahesh Bhupathi and Yuki Bhambri, playing for the first time together as a team, saw off initial resistance from Yannick Mertens and Stephane Robert to reach the men’s doubles semifinals of the Delhi Open, here on Thursday with a 7-5, 6-1 win. In the singles, Prajnesh Gunenswaran entered quarterfinals after getting a walkover from Chinese seventh seed Yan Bai, who pulled out due to an upset stomach.
Also, Ankita Raina breezed into the women’s singles semifinals of the Delhi Open with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Anna Morgina.