DEN BOSCH, Netherlands — Top seeds Tommy Robredo and Guillermo Coria’s lack of expertise on grass was ruthlessly exposed yesterday when they were beaten in the second round of the Ordina Open.
Spaniard Robredo was beaten 6-2, 7-6 by German Lars Burgsmueller, ranked 101st in the world, while last year’s runner-up and second seed Coria fell 6-3, 6-4 to unheralded Czech Jan Hernych.
Robredo struggled to cope with the pace of the court and Burgsmueller held his nerve to reach his first quarterfinal since September 2004.
Burgsmueller came into the event having lost in the first round of his last six top-level tournaments but he belied his lack of form by romping through the first set.
Robredo looked set to hit back when he broke for 4-3 in the second but the French Open quarterfinalist dropped his own serve immediately.
The players went into a tiebreak and the German clinched it 7-5 to secure a meeting with either defending champion Michael Llodra or eighth-seeded Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu.
Second seed Coria looked out of his element in the breezy conditions of the late afternoon and Hernych took full advantage to claim the best win of his career.
In the women’s event, second seed Nadia Petrova opened her grasscourt season with a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win over Mariana Diaz Oliva of Argentina to reach the quarterfinals.
The Russian, seeking her first WTA Tour title, started well and after taking the opening set she broke in the seventh game of the second before sealing victory in just under an hour.
Petrova, the highest-ranked player left in the tournament after the withdrawal through injury of top seed Elena Dementieva, next plays sixth seed Gisela Dulko.
The Argentine thrashed Italian Maria Elena Camerin 6-3, 6-0.
Fourth seed Dinara Safina, younger sister of Australian Open champion Marat Safin, edged out Maria Kirilenko 6-4, 7-6, while 16-year-old Michaella Krajicek reached her first WTA Tour quarterfinal with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 victory over third seed Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain.
Krajicek thrilled her home crowd with a mature performance, hitting back after dropping the second set to beat the world No. 30 in one hour 43 minutes.
Top Seed Mauresmo Loses to Russian Qualifier Douchevina
In Eastbourne, England, top seed Amelie Mauresmo fell at the first hurdle when she lost to Russian qualifier Vera Douchevina in the Eastbourne WTA tournament yesterday.
Her 6-4, 6-4 defeat in the second round, after a first-round bye, threw world number three Mauresmo’s Wimbledon preparations into disarray.
Mauresmo, who will be the third seed at Wimbledon next week, looked uncomfortable on the Devonshire Park grass despite having been a semi-finalist here last year.
She was warned by the umpire after angrily hitting a ball over the stands and into a road outside the grounds after Douchevina went 4-2 up in the second set.
Mauresmo, twice a Wimbledon semifinalist, saved two match points in the ninth game and another in the 10th before putting a service return long to lose the match in 77 minutes.
On a good day for qualifiers, Italian Roberta Vinci, the world No. 97, defeated temperamental Russian fifth seed Vera Zvonareva 6-2 7-6.
Second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, the defending champion at the 585,000 pounds ($1.06 million) tournament, came back from losing the first set to fellow Russian Anna Chakvetadze to win 1-6, 6-4, 7-6.
Last year’s French Open champion Anastasia Myskina, the fourth seed, was also taken to three sets before beating Venezuelan lucky loser Maria Vento-Kabchi 6-4, 5-7, 6-0.
