Top women's seeds fall in Brisbane

BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Top seeds Samantha Stosur and Shahar Peer were both beaten Tuesday in second-round matches at the Brisbane International tennis tournament in Australia.

Stosur, the No. 1 seed, was taken out by Jarmila Groth 6-2, 6-4. Groth had 10 aces and lost her serve just once. She had a pair of breaks in each set in the upset. Groth, a rising No. 42 in the world, is 2-0 in her career versus Stosur, the world No. 6.

Peer, seeded second, fell to Lucie Safarova 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 in a match that took more than 2 1/2 hours. Safarova had Peer on the defensive much of the match, creating 19 break-point chances and cashing in six of them. Four of the breaks came in the third set.

No. 5 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was the first seeded player to make the third round, defeating Bojana Jovanovski 6-2, 7-5. She matched Groth's 10 aces and won 74 percent of the points on serve.

The first round wrapped up with Roberta Vinci's 6-2, 7-6 (7-2) win over Christina McHale. Vinci faced four break points, saving all of them.