EASTBOURNE: Top seed Agnieszka Radwanska took a shortcut into the third round of the WTA Eastbourne grass-court event on Tuesday when Croatian opponent Mirjana Lucic-Baroni retired ill trailing 6-4, 2-1.
Radwanska, the 2008 champion, who played the Wimbledon final in 2012, needed just 47 minutes under the sun at Devonshire Park to advance.
She moves directly into a showdown with former fellow Wimbledon runner-up Eugenie Bouchard after the unseeded Canadian booked her spot 6-3, 6-1 over Romanian 15th seed Irina Begu.
"I love the grass and I'm really glad to be back here," said Radwanska, 2015 losing finalist to Switzerland's Belinda Bencic.
Bouchard is also up for the challenge.
"I've had some (recent) results that I wasn't satisfied with, so coming into this week I really kicked myself in the butt," she said.
"I told myself to go after it and not have any regrets."
France's Kristina Mladenovic earned an upset by beating Swiss fourth seed Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 7-5, as the seed made a slow start from which she could not recover.
Former tournament winner Caroline Wozniacki knocked out another seed, beating number seven Samantha Stosur, 6-2, 6-1.
Stosur has never done particularly well on grass, losing in the second round at the last two editions despite reaching semi-finals here.
Double Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova, the number five, beat Hungarian Timea Babos 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) while Slovak 12th seed Dominika Cibulkova advanced against Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 6-3.
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