EASTBOURNE, England – EASTBOURNE, England — Defending champion and third seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland was beaten 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) in the second round of the Eastbourne International by 2013 winner Elena Vesnina of Russia on Tuesday.
Top seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland advanced when Mirjana Lucic-Baroni retired with illness as Radwanska led 6-4, 2-1, but second seeded Italian Roberta Vinci was also upset 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 by another Russian former champion, Ekaterina Makarova.
Former top-ranked junior Kristina Mladenovic of France upset fourth-seeded Swiss Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 7-5, and Russian sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova and eighth seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain were also beaten.
Fifth-seeded Kvitova, who has reached just one semifinal this year, beat Timea Babos of Hungary 6-4, 7-6 (5).
"I'm kind of feeling that I am playing well, even though I lost some of the matches in a couple of months," she said, including a second-round defeat in England at Birmingham last week.
Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark also reached the third round by crushing seventh-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-1, and Canada's Eugenie Bouchard upset 15th seed Irina-Camelia Begu, winning 6-3, 6-1.
Prior to this week Bouchard had managed just seven wins in the eight tournaments she has played since reaching the Kuala Lumpur final in March. But she has dropped just seven games in her two matches this week.
"I feel like I'm playing well and I'm very focused in the matches, which is the most important," Bouchard said. "I feel like I'm really trying to go after the ball and really trying to dominate the point."
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