China's Zheng Jie became one of several upsets at the China Open on Monday.

Ranked No 22 in the world, Zheng lost to Spanish qualifier Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino, 6-2, 6-4, to the disappointment of the home crowd in the morning session.

"I started to lose my rhythm after losing two game points and had too many errors," Zheng said. "It's hard to maintain top form for very long. Sometimes, you lose matches that you didn't expect you would. I am happy about my performance this year and the top 30 ranking. But I still expect to improve my serving and it didn't work very well today."

Fourth-seed Petra Kvitova ended her campaign unexpectedly in the second round, losing to unseeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, 6-3, 6-2 and placing her No 5 ranking in danger of falling to German No 6 Angelique Kerber.

World No 2 Maria Sharapova struggled before defeating Romanian Simona Halep, 7-5, 7-5, while Danish favorite Caroline Wozniacki also had to fight to knock out South African Chanelle Scheepers, 7-5, 6-7, 6-2.

German No 28 Sabine Lisicki stunned Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues, 6-3, 5-7, 6-2, in three sets, while world No 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus defeated France's Alize Cornet, 6-1, 6-0.

On the men's side, Croatian fourth seed Marin Cilic lost to wild-card entry Marius Copil of Romania, 6-3, 6-7, 4-6, and German Florian Mayer breezed pass Italian Fabio Fognini, 6-1, 6-2, to make it to the second round.

(China Daily 10/02/2012 page12)