Cirstea bounced out at Korea Open

SEOUL, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Fourth-seeded Sorana Cirstea lost a tight three-set match, the lone upset on a 14-match, first-round card Tuesday at the Korea Open tennis tournament in Seoul.

Cirstea fell 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-3 to Anna-Lena Groenefeld in a match that took 2 hours, 19 minutes. Groenefeld won just three more points than Cirstea (105-102) in the match but piled up eight service breaks, including three in the third set.

No. 2-seeded Anabel Medina Garrigues had no trouble in beating Andrea Petkovic 6-3, 6-4 and third-seeded Francesca Schiavone took out Yurika Sema 6-1, 6-4 in their first-round matches.

Other seeded players winning Tuesday were fifth-seeded Alisa Kleybanova, who stopped Katarina Srebotnik 6-2, 6-3; No. 6-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who was a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 winner over Angela Hayes; seventh-seeded Vera Dushevina, who beat Urszula Radwanska 6-3, 6-1; and No. 8-seeded Sybille Bammer, who defeated Ekaterina Makarova 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Also winning Tuesday were, Magdalena Rybarikova, Maria Kirilenko, Anastasija Sevastova, Meghann Shaughnessy, Chanelle Scheepers, Yung-jan Chan and Kai-chen Chang.

The Korea Open's top seed is Daniela Hantuchova, who opens her tournament play Wednesday against Ayumi Morita.