Estoril Open 2004 News and Events

Henrieta Nagyova
© João Lagos Sports

The top two women's seeds both went out on Wednesday at the Estoril Open as Elena Bovina and Alicia Molik suffered three-set defeats.

Bovina, who reached the final at the Estadio Nacional in 2001, went down 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-3 at the hands of Spain's Marta Marrero, while Molik crashed 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) to Henrieta Nagyova.

Marrero, who was playing her fifth successive tournament against the No. 1 seed, led 4-1 in the third set before seeing her Russian opponent break back and have a point to level at 4-4. But the Spaniard broke to serve for the match at 5-3 and converted her second match point to book her place in the quarterfinals against Austrian Barbara Schett.

"For sure it's disappointing," said Bovina. "I let her play her game in the third set and it was very difficult for me. My game is to play aggressive and take risks and I really didn't do that in the third set. I really hope I can learn from this match.

"I thought I had a chance to win but at times I didn't do anything about it. I should have stepped up my game but I never did, I just went with what was happening. I started losing my serve in the second set which is not what I'm supposed to do."

Meanwhile, Nagyova was delighted to have booked her place in the second round against Stephanie Cohen Aloro. "I'm very happy that I won today," said the Slovakian. "I was up 5-1 in the third set and had match point at 5-2 and 5-5 and made some stupid mistakes. But I think it was a very good match and I'm very happy that I won the tie-break."

Third seed Emilie Loit continued her winning form with a straight sets victory over Ludmila Cervanova. The French woman, who captured her first career WTA Tour title in Casablanca last week, came through 6-2, 6-0 to book her place in the last eight, where she will meet Klara Koukalova, who defeated No. 7 seed Katarina Srebotnik 6-3, 6-4.