British number five Anne Keothavong bowed out of the AEGON Classic in the first round on Monday with a 7-5 6-2 defeat to American qualifier Alison Riske.
Keothavong, handed a wild card for the event, was broken six times in the course of the 92-minute match as she slipped to defeat against an opponent ranked 44 places higher in the current world rankings.
Seeds Su-Wei Hsieh and Ayumi Morita were early casualties on the opening day as they were beaten by Jamie Hampton and Alison Van Uytvanck respectively.
Hampton eased past 10th seed Hsieh 6-2 6-3 while Belgium’s Van Uytvanck needed just 49 minutes to beat 11th seeded Morita of Japan 6-4 6-0.
There were no such problems for former Wimbledon semi-finalist Tsvetana Pironkova who beat Lauren Davis of the United States 6-2 6-1.
Other early winners included Croatian veteran Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, Croatian qualifier Ajla Tomljanovic, American Madison Keys and Vesna Dolonc of Serbia.
There was further misery for the British fans in the evening session as Melanie South was beaten 6-4 6-2 by Magdalena Rybarikova.
