Kristina Mladenovic's miserable form continued at the Wuhan Open on Sunday as the world number 15 slipped to an eighth successive straight-sets defeat.
Mladenovic had enjoyed a successful start to 2017 with victory in St Petersburg and final appearances in Acapulco, Stuttgart and Madrid.
She also reached the French Open quarter-finals but her form has dipped ever since injuring knee ligaments at Wimbledon, and her 6-3 6-2 defeat to Katerina Siniakova extended a terrible run that stretches back to late July.
Her woeful seven week stretch began with defeat to Bianca Andreescu in Washington and showed no sign of stopping in China as Siniakova dumped out the 13th seed with ease - the Czech reeling off five successive games to progress to round two.
Fellow seed Anastasija Sevastova also suffered an early exit as she was comfortably beaten 6-4 6-2 by Ekaterina Makarova.
It had looked like being a different story with Sevastova – ranked 15th at this tournament - as she led 4-1 in the opening set, but Makarova reeled off nine in a row to set her up for victory.
Elena Vesnina had no such problems as she eased past Duan Ying-Ying, the 16th seed winning 6-3 6-4.
There were straight-set wins for Sorana Cirstea, Ashleigh Barty, Magda Linette and Christina McHale, while Olympic champion Monica Puig battled past Mona Barthel 6-0 6-7 (0-7) 6-4.
Maria Sakkari came from a set down to beat Yulia Putintseva, and Lesia Tsurenko knocked out Carla Suarez Navarro after a marathon second-set tie-break – the Ukrainian winning 6-3 7-6 (14-12).
