Russia’s Elena Vesnina reached the third round of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham on Wednesday after surprising seventh seed Christina McHale in a three-set thriller.
Vesnina took the first set with ease before crumbling in the second and fighting back to take a narrow victory in the decider for a 6-1, 1-6, 7-5 win over McHale, the world No. 29.
Vesnina will now face either Melanie Oudin or Michelle Larcher de Brito in the third round.
Eighth seed Ekaterina Makarova was forced to fight hard against Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhstan on her way to a 7-6(4), 6-3 win.
Makarova’s third round opponent will be Marina Erakovic of New Zealand, who knocked out Britain’s Laura Robson 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
Qualifier and world No. 93 Vera Dushevina failed to reach the second round, losing to 13th seed Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan 6-4, 6-7(5), 4-6.
Hsieh’s second-round opponent will be another Russian in the shape of Alexandra Panova.
World No. 72 Panova defeated Canada’s Stephanie Dubois 6-7(2), 6-1, 7-5 in the first round.
In other play, it took fifth seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia an hour and a half to beat British player Melanie South 6-1, 7-6 (7-3).
Birmingham is traditionally seen as one of the key warm-up grass-court events for Wimbledon, which starts
The AEGON Classic ends June 17 and has a prize fund of $220,000.
