2 of 6 seeds ousted in opening matches; Canadian wins in front of home crowd

As the first round of the rogers Cup came to a close, two seeds were ousted in their opening matches, but the other four seeds who played on Tueday reserved a spot in the next round

Nicole Vaidisova was one of the seeds who was ousted, falling to Ai Sugiyama in a three-setter, 63 36 62. She was the only seed to lose before the first round was finished. This is Vaidisova'a second early loss on hardcourts, the first being ast week in Los Angeles, when she fell to Bethanie Mattek, who made it to the semis eventually.

"Nicole didn't have a perfect day," Sugiyama said. "She gave me a lot of unforced errors, which gave me a lot of confidence, that if I could just play point by point, game by game, I had a chance to get through today. And in the end it went my way. It was an up-and-down match, but luckily I got through the third set."

Sugiyama, so far, has had a great season, reaching the semis for the first time since 2006 in Stanford two weeks ago, and reaching the third round in Los Angeles last week, where, in both tournaments she had some Top 20 wins, in Stanford against Hantuchova, and in Los Angeles against Patty Schnyder.

"I'm playing a lot of matches and I'm playing well," Sugiyama continued. "It makes me a little bit tired and with the three-hour time difference from Los Angeles it was tough to adjust, but I'm just focusing one point at a time."

The other four seeds playing the first round made it through. No.11 seed Victoria Azarenka beat qualifier Jamea Jackson, 61 61; No.12 seed Nadia Petrova beat wildcard Marie-Ève Pelletier, 60 61; No.13 seed Maria Kirilenko defeated Anne Keothavong, 61 75; and No.15 seed Flavia Pennetta, a runner-up at Los Angeles last week, rallied from a set and a break down to beat Olga Savchuk, 16 75 63.

Other first round winners were Sybille Bammer, Alisa Kleybanova, Marta Domachowska, Jill Craybas, qualifier Melinda Czink and Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak, who edged Chan Yung-Jan in the feature night match in front of a packed crowd, 62 16 75.

"It was so great. It was so special. I haven't played in front of such a big crowd in so long," Wozniak said. "They gave me so much energy in the match. Definitely the win goes to them. My opponent did great in the second set. In the third set I had a 4-2 lead and it got really tight and close in the points, but I kept fighting."

Wozniak will next face the No. 2 seed Jelena Jankovic, who lost her chance last week to reach the No. 1 spot in rankings. Being a Canadian,a nd playing the no. 2 in the world, Wozniak will probably have another full stadium to play for on Wednesday.

"It's a great opportunity for me to play the No.2 player in the world; it'll be my second time," Wozniak added. "This time I feel I have more experience. I hope tomorrow it's going to be a better match, that I'll be more aggressive and try to focus, try to stay in the moment the whole match."

Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova, Vera Zvonareva and Elena Dementieva all recieved second round byes, and were all involved n the first three matches of the second round. Excluding Kuznetsova, they all had the exact same result; loss. No. 4 seed Kuznetsoa was first to take the court against Alla Kudryavtseva, and she won in straight sets without having to finish the match, as Kudryavtseva retire due to a right shoulder injury, 60 10 ret'd. Zvonareva was a different story, as she suffered a shock defeat to Virginie Razzano in a tight three-setter, 63 16 76(2), despite leading 4-1 in the third set. The same happened with Dementieva, as she was also stunned in her debut match against Dominkia Cibulkova, 64 62. This was Cibulkova's third Top 10 win, having previously won to Venus Williams and Anna Chakvetadze earlier this year.