Wed Jul 16 14:19:15 2008

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Szavay rolls; Cornet exits Bad Gastein

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Bad Gastein, Austria (Sports Network) - Top-seeded Hungarian Agnes Szavay was among Wednesday's first-round winners, while last week's Budapest titlist Alize Cornet exited the draw at the $175,000 Gastein Ladies tennis event.

Szavay handled Ukrainian Viktoriya Kutuzova 6-4, 6-2, while the second-seeded Cornet succumbed to Paraguay's Rossana De Los Rios, and an illness. De Los Rios was leading Cornet 2-6, 6-2, 3-2 when the Frenchwoman retired from the match due to gastrointestinitis.

Cornet was fresh off her first-ever title, last week in Hungary.

On Thursday, Szavay will face Austria's Melanie Klaffner in the second round.

Two other seeds moved on, while one other upset occurred on Day 3. Third- seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki waltzed past Taipei's Su-Wei Hsieh 6-1, 6-1 and fifth-seeded Swiss Timea Bacsinszky held off Romanian qualifier Liana Ungur 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, while eighth-seeded Russian Vera Dushevina gave way to resurgent Croat Karolina Sprem 6-3, 6-4 at this clay-court event.

Additional opening-round wins came for Czech qualifiers Tereza Hladikova and Lucie Hradecka, Ukrainian Mariya Koryttseva, German wild card Anna-Lena Groenefeld, 2007 Bad Gastein runner-up Yvonne Meusburger of Austria and Austrian wild card Patricia Mayr. Meusburger, who lost to Italian Francesca Schiavone in last year's finale here, beat France's Stephanie Cohen-Aloro 7-5, 6-2 on Wednesday.

The winner of this event will collect $28,000.