Women's seeds are scattered at French Open

Women's tennis has descended into disarray at this French Open. For only the third time in the Open era, none of the top three seeds has reached the quarter‑finals of a slam. It last happened at Wimbledon three years ago and before that in Melbourne in 1997. On the men's side, the only minor tremors have been the early exits of the sixth seed, Tomas Berdych, and eighth seed, Jürgen Melzer, (both to qualifiers), with the remaining heavyweights going into the second week in good heart and form. But the women's title might yet end up in the hands of a relative unknown, as it did last year when the Italian Francesca Schiavone beat Sam Stosur. On Sunday the 30-year-old but ageless Schiavone, seeded fifth, was energised by the support of a nostalgic crowd and heartened in the belief that she could go deep again when she beat the 10th seed, Jelena Jankovic, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. If anyone can defy the march of the sans-culottes, perhaps it is the Italian queen of Roland Garros. She has a shredded field in front of her. Next up, she has the 19-year-old Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, of whom great things are expected. When Pavlyuchenkova, the 15th seed, put out the third seed, Vera Zvonereva, 26, she not only beat a top-10 player for the first time in 10 attempts, she exposed the women's game to renewed concerns that it is creaking badly at the top. For evidence of the insularity of the modern player, Pavlyuchenkova's remarks later were illuminating: "Everyone is [saying] we don't have a leader right now in women's tennis. It's not like No1 or the top five are winning, like in men's tennis. It's not like the top four always play in semi-finals in grand slams. But I don't really want to comment on this, because it's not my business. I'm just trying to do my thing, focusing on me. The rest, I don't really care." At the start of the second week this is the casualty list of the leading lights: the world No1, Caroline Wozniacki, lasted until the third round, imploding against the 28th seed, Daniela Hantuchova; the second seed, Kim Clijsters, left in the second round, beaten by the 20-year-old Dutch six-footer Arantxa Rus, ranked 114th in the world and who lost in the next round. If the fourth seed, Victoria Azarenka, loses on Monday to the 22-year-old Russian Ekaterina Makarova, ranked 33, and the crowd favourite Maria Sharapova (7) fails to quell the challenge of the dangerous 12th seed, Agnieszka Radwanska, the women's side of the tournament will be struggling for credibility as well as glamour.