Schiavone, Lisicki ousted; Jankovic wins in Birmingham

Birmingham, England – Top seed and former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone and defending Birmingham titlist Sabine Lisicki were sent packing, while former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic posted a second- round victory Wednesday at the Wimbledon tuneup event in Birmingham.

Japan's Misaki Doi doused the Italian Schiavone 7-5, 6-4 and Poland's Urszula Radwanska ousted the second-seeded Lisicki 6-3, 6-4, while a fifth-seeded Jankovic, the 2007 champion and 2005 runner-up here, avoided an upset by topping British wild card Melanie South 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) at Edgbaston Priory Club.

Lisicki defeated Slovak Daniela Hantuchova in last year's grass-court finale here.

A third-seeded Hantuchova, like Lisicki, also will not make a return trip to the final after losing to Hungarian Melinda Czink 7-5, 7-6 (7-5) on Wednesday.

Fourth-seeded Italian Roberta Vinci was leading Virginie Razzano 6-3 when the Frenchwoman retired, while Russian Elena Vesnina toppled seventh-seeded American Christina McHale 6-1, 1-6, 7-5 on Day 3.

Another upset came when Czech Andrea Hlavackova bounced sixth-seeded German Mona Barthel 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.

Additional top-10-seed upsets were averted when No. 8 Russian Ekaterina Makarova dismissed Kazakhstanian lucky-loser Sesil Karatantcheva 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 and No. 9 Marina Erakovic of New Zealand held off Brit Laura Robson 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

In other action involving seeds, No. 13 Taiwanese Su-Wei Hsieh drubbed Russian Alexandra Panova 6-4, 6-2, American Irina Falconi upset No. 14 Hungarian Timea Babos 6-0, 6-4, and British crowd favorite Heather Watson humbled No. 15 fellow countrywoman Elena Baltacha 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.

American qualifier Melanie Oudin pressed on with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Portuguese qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito.

Also moving into the third round were Chinese qualifier Zheng Jie, France's Stephanie Foretz Gacon and Aussie Casey Dellacqua.

The first round concluded Wednesday, with victories coming for Hsieh, Babos, Baltacha and Panova.

The winner of the $220,000 Aegon Classic will collect $37,000.