BEIJING, 22 September 2005 — Serena Williams suffered one of the worst defeats of her career as she was humbled 6-2, 7-6 by local girl Sun Tiantian at the China Open yesterday.

The defending champion went down after a flurry of embarrassing errors against the Chinese wildcard, ranked 118 places below her at 127 in the world. The seven-time grand slam winner saved four match points before Olympic gold medallist Sun converted her fifth chance with a forehand pass to win the tiebreak 9-7.

Fourth seed Williams looked close to tears as she served in the tiebreak but she refused to make excuses for her worst loss since joining the WTA Tour full-time in 1997.

Sun, who won Olympic doubles gold with Li Ting in Athens last year, became the second Chinese player to reach the last eight in Beijing.

China’s No.1 Peng Shuai beat Argentine Mariana Diaz-Oliva 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 to reach her fourth WTA quarter-final this year.

The world No. 33 battled nerves to storm through the tiebreak 7-0 and will now play Germany’s number nine seed Anna-Lena Groenefeld, who ousted Japan’s Ai Sugiyama 6-2, 6-3.

Peng’s compatriot Zheng Jie produced an upset with a 7-5, 4-6, 7-5 win over sixth seed Jelena Jankovic in a first round match on a successful day for the home players.

Serena’s sister Venus, seeded three, plays Spain’s Nuria Llagostera Vives in her second round match today, having only arrived in Beijing from Seoul on Tuesday.

The Williams sisters and top seed Maria Sharapova received first-round byes. Second seed Lindsay Davenport withdrew with injury to simplify Wimbledon champion Venus’s route to the final.

New world No. 1 Sharapova faces Shahar Peer in her opening match today after the Israeli’s 6-2, 6-0 win over another Russian, Vera Douchevina. Frenchwoman Tatiana Golovin was another seed to fall yesterday, the No. 7 losing 6-3, 6-4 to Japan’s Shinobu Asagoe in a first round match.

Czink Upsets Third-Seeded Mirza

In Calcutta, India, Hungary’s Melinda Czink entered the quarterfinals of the WTA Tour’s US$170,000 Sunfeast Open tennis tournament, defeating third-seeded Sania Mirza of India in the second round yesterday.

The 131st-ranked Czink rallied from a disastrous start to capitalize on the 34th-ranked Mirza’s errors, clinching a 0-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory in a contest whose third set featured seven service breaks.

Eighth-seeded Rika Fujiwara of Japan also failed to make the quarterfinals as India’s Shikha Uberoi clinched a 6-2, 6-3 victory in their second-round contest.

Mirza blanked Czink in the first set, before the Hungarian clinched the second set by effecting service breaks in the first and seventh games. Mirza broke back in the second game, but lost the set after dropping service the second time. The deciding third set saw both players struggle to hold their service, and Czink prevailed as she forced four breaks and dropped service three times.