Wed Jun 11 14:58:07 2008

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Top-seeded Bartoli bows out in Birmingham

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Birmingham, England (Sports Network) - Top-seeded Wimbledon runner-up Marion Bartoli of France was among Wednesday's second-round upset victims at the $200,000 DFS Classic, a grass-court Wimbledon tuneup.

Rising Czech Petra Cetkovska ousted Bartoli 5-7, 6-4, 6-0 at Edgbaston Priory Club. The struggling Bartoli has now dropped four straight and nine of her last 12 matches.

Other top-10 upsets came when New Zealand's Marina Erakovic erased sixth- seeded Indian Sania Mirza 6-3, 6-0 and Hungarian lucky-loser Melinda Czink took out seventh-seeded Belarusian Olga Govortsova 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) on Day 3 here.

Third-seeded Czech Nicole Vaidisova halted a personal six-match losing streak by leveling France's Nathalie Dechy 6-1, 6-3, while fifth-seeded Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko edged out Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 7-5. Vaidisova will meet 15th-seeded Russian Ekaterina Makarova in the third round here on Thursday.

Another upset came when Belgian Yanina Wickmayer dismissed 11th-seeded Aussie Casey Dellacqua 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, while 12th-seeded Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko blew past Aussie qualifier Samantha Stosur 6-3, 6-2 and 17th-seeded Japanese Aiko Nakamura clipped Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

Additional second-round wins came for France's Camille Pin, Indian qualifier Sunitha Rao and Russian qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova.

This week's winner will collect $31,000.