Italy’s Francesca Schiavone and Germany’s Sabine Lisicki, the top two seeds, both crashed out of the Birmingham WTA grasscourt event on Wednesday. The pair both received first round byes but probably each wished they’d played a match as they exited the Wimbledon warm-up tournament in straight sets. Schiavone, the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam tournament when she triumphed on the clay of Paris to take the French Open two years ago, went down 7-5, 6-4 to Japan’s Misaki Doi. And second seed Lisicki was defeated in even more comprehensive fashion, losing 6-3, 6-4 to Poland’s Urszula Radwanska.
