Dubai: can top seeds avoid the carnage?

The seeds have been anything but safe at this week’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

Not one of the four seeds who have featured in action so far have survived.

Finalists in St Petersburg last week, No.7 seed Roberta Vinci and top 10 debutant Belinda Bencic, seeded fifth, were both eliminated in the first round on Tuesday.

Vinci fell to qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova while Bencic was upended in three by Serbian veteran Jelena Jankovic.

A day earlier, this year’s Sydney champion and eighth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova won a solitary game against Julia Goerges, while No.6 seed Karolina Pliskova fell in straight sets to Coco Vandeweghe.

Such seeded carnage follows on from the Australian Open, where less than half of the tournament’s 32 seeds survived beyond the second round.

Can the top four seeds in Dubai buck the trend?

Having received first round byes, Simona Halep (No.1), Garbine Muguruza (No.2), Carla Suarez Navarro (No.3) and Petra Kvitova (No.4) will all take to the court on Wednesday.

Of that quartet, only Suarez Navarro owns more than four match wins in 2016.

Having fallen early at Melbourne Park in January, Halep, Muguruza and Kvitova will all be aiming to get their seasons on track with a strong showing in the Middle East.

Keep visiting tennismash.com to follow the progress of the women’s seeds – and many more WTA stars – at this week’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.