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Ivanovic and Hantuchova crash out

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BALI, Indonesia -- Ana Ivanovic and Daniela Hantuchova both slumped to first round defeats at the Bali International on Tuesday.

Fourth-seeded Ivanovic lost 6-3 4-6 6-2 to 103rd-ranked Russian Olga Poutchkova, and fifth seed Hantuchova fell 7-5 6-2 to 82nd-ranked Melinda Czink of Hungary.

Defending champion Lindsay Davenport survived a strong challenge from Russian Galina Voskoboeva before winning 7-5 6-1.

Ivanovic never looked comfortable against Poutchkova, although the Serb had opportunities to turn the match around.

Her first chance came when she held two break points to recover to 4-5 in the opening set, and the next came when she broke to take the second set and level the match.

But she struggled with her serve throughout the match and was unable to offer a consistent challenge.

"I'm very disappointed with my game today," said Ivanovic. "I played a lot of tennis the last couple of weeks, and coming here I didn't have time to adapt to the conditions."

Hantuchova held the upper hand in the early stages to build a 5-2 lead before squandering three set points on Czink's serve.

The missed opportunities seemed to derail the Slovakian and she dropped her next two service games, both with a double-fault, before Czink then held off a break point when leading 6-5 to serve out for the opening set.

Three breaks of serve at the start of the second set left Czink leading 2-1 and a fine backhand drive gave her a further break for a decisive 5-2 lead.

"I missed three easy shots in a row and never put her under pressure on those set points, and that's where things started to go in a bad direction," said Hantuchova.

Davenport was undeterred by bats sweeping over the court, but was unsettled by the strength of her opponent's serve and several fiercely-struck winners down the line before eventually taking charge with her power game.

After breaking for 7-5 with a forehand winner that landed on the line and was disputed by Voskoboeva, the 30-year-old American took control of the second set.

"At the beginning she was hitting a lot of winners and hitting the balls hard and short points, and I didn't feel I was quite ready to combat all that," said Davenport.


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Ivanovic is the highest seed to go out of the Bali International event so far.

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