Several Surprises in Indian Wells Doubles

Four seeded teams didn't make it out of the first round of the Indian Wells doubles event.

Published March 13, 2009 12:00

Several Surprises in Indian Wells Doubles
Anabel Medina Garrigues, Virginia Ruano Pascual

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA - The first round didn't go as planned for half of the eight seeded teams at the BNP Paribas Open, as four duos - including the second and third seeds - did not survive their first challenges.

Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual, seeded No.2 and the reigning French Open champions, lost to wildcard team Svetlana Kuznetsova and Amélie Mauresmo, 62 76(5), while No.3 seeds Kveta Peschke and Lisa Raymond blew a 62 53 lead - and two match points in the match tie-break - during a 26 76(3) 1311 loss to Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai.

Also losing out were No.5 seeds Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama, who had five match points in a match tie-break but fell to Alla Kudryavtseva and Anastasia Rodionova, 64 46 1614, and No.8 seeds Chan Yung-Jan and Sun Tiantian, who lost to Iveta Benesova and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, 62 46 107.

Top seeds Cara Black and Liezel Huber, No.4 seeds Samantha Stosur and Rennae Stubbs, No.6 seeds Nuria Llagostera Vives and María José Martínez Sánchez and No.7 seeds Maria Kirilenko and Flavia Pennetta all passed with flying colors.

Among the unseeded winners in Round 1 were two-time Grand Slam champions Yan Zi and Zheng Jie and one-time Grand Slam champions the Bondarenko sisters. Wildcards Maria Sharapova and Elena Vesnina wasn't able to prevail in Sharapova's first match on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour since last August, falling to Ekaterina Makarova and Tatiana Poutchek in a match tie-break.

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