By Chris Oddo | Sunday, January 18, 2015
Day 1 is not yet complete and six seeds on the women's side have already fallen.
Photo Source: Corleve
The happy slam turned into a crying game for many seeded women on Day 1 in Melbourne, as six seeds have already fallen in early action.
Two top ten seeds—Ana Ivanovic and Angelique Kerber—have been stunned, as well as No. 23 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (loss to Wickmayer), No. 26 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova (loss to Garcia), No. 29 seed Sabine Lisicki (loss to Mladenovic) and No. 32 seed Belinda Bencic (loss to Goerges).
5th-seeded Ivanovic, who took the first set from Czech qualifier Lucie Hradecka, ended up falling, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2. With the loss Ivanovic becomes the first top-five seed to lose in the first round of the Australian Open since 2003.
“It's really disappointing,” said Ivanovic. “You know, it's probably the worst thing could happen. But still, the year is young and I really have to now sit and work on few things and just maybe try to have a different approach to this kind of event and try to see what was lacking.”
9th-seeded Kerber lost in the first round in a major for the first time since 2011 when she fell to Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu, 6-4, 0-6, 6-1.
ESPN’s Chris Evert offered some ideas as to why so many seeds were falling so early. “The game’s getting more and more depth, the younger players are doing well, there’s not that intimidation factor,” she said. “It’s always a question mark coming into the first Grand Slam of the year, how you’re going to play. A lot of players like to play themselves into the year and build more and more confidence and start to play well – but this is cold turkey. Once you enter this tournament you have to start 100 percent right from the first match."
While things might seem pretty bleak for all those seeds who were sent packing today, the flip side of that is a lot of happy people walking around on cloud nine. Lucie Hradecka, who had to qualify for the main draw before upsetting Ivanovic today, was one of them who could probably speak for all.
“It's two hours after match, and I'm still smiling,” she said.
Update
Prior to Maria Sharapova's night session match, a total of eight seeds have fallen on Day 1. Only three more to go to reach a first-round record at majors: