Tennis: Svitolina makes early exit at Tianjin Open
Fifth seed Kristina Mladenovic took just 46 minutes to downed Liu Fangzhou
BEIJING (AFP) - Elina Svitolina crashed out of the Tianjin Open in the first round Monday, continuing a poor run for the Ukrainian who dropped out of the world top 20 this week.
Svitolina, who reached a career ranking high of 15 after making it to the semi-finals in Cincinnati in August, lost to 115-ranked Elena Vesnina of Russia 6-2, 6-4.
At last week s China Open in Beijing, Svitolina fell in the second round to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
China s top player and home-crowd favourite Zheng Saisai, seeded eighth in the tournament, also lost in two sets to unseeded Russian Evgeniya Rodina 7-5, 6-3.
Meanwile, fifth seed Kristina Mladenovic took just 46 minutes to downed Liu Fangzhou of China 6-0, 6-1.
