DOHA, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Top-seeded Serb Ana Ivanovic withdrew from her Qatar Open third round match on Thursday after injuring the left ankle the previous day against Olga Govortsova of Belarus. There are also bad fortunes for other top seeds at the 2.5 million U.S. dollars tournament plagued by a vicious sandstorm as second-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova was upset by Austrian Sybille Bammer 6-3, 7-6(8) and sixth-seeded Venus Williams lost to Dominika Cibulkova 6-3, 6-3 in the third round. Ivanovic, runner-up to Maria Sharapova at last month's Australian Open, slipped on the baseline when leading 6-3, 5-1 butstruggled to finish her second-round match on Wednesday. "It's still pretty painful and hard for me to step on. I'm very disappointed the way I had to end this tournament," Ivanovic told reporters. The 15th-seeded Bammer overcame strong wind to win in exactly two hours. Bammer broke Kuznetsova's serve three times in the first set, and both players had four breaks in the second. "I started to play better in the end, but in these conditions it was pretty impossible to play a normal game," Kuznetsova said. "Playing bad I still had chances, so this is disappointing." Cibulkova used strong baseline play and broke serve twice in both sets to defeat Williams in the first meeting between them. Williams made 40 unforced errors against Cibulkova, in stark contrast to just four by the Slovak who played with vigour and accuracy. Elsewhere, Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova beat Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand 6-2, 6-2, while Vera Zvonareva beat 11th-seeded Dinara Safina 7-5, 6-3. Also, third seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic beat Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-1, 6-2, and will play China's top player Li Na, who thrashed 12th-seeded Shahar Peer 6-1, 6-3.
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