Titleholder Venus Williams and Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova head a long list of seeds who have been blown away at the Dubai Open.
Williams, unbeaten in 16 matches over six years here, and Kvitova, the champion two years ago, both failed on Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals, and were joined by another former winner, Agnieszka Radwanska, and a former world No.1, Ana Ivanovic.
All were ousted at an upgraded tournament with a first prize that is now nearly half a million dollars, suggesting the pool of talent capable of beating the leading players has deepened.
One of them is Lucie Safarova, a 28-year-old top 20 Czech who outplayed Williams 6-4 6-2 and whose hard-to-read left-handed serve contrasted markedly with the 34-year-old American's delivery, which appeared half paced amidst on-court temperatures reaching 40 degrees.
"I think she played awesome," Williams said.
"There were a couple of games where I didn't even get my racket on the ball. What can I say to that?"
Karolina Pliskova, a younger Czech, overcame an often excellent Ivanovic 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.
Ivanovic didn't help her cause with two double faults near the end which scuppered her chances.
"We don't have many players like that," said Ivanovic.
"She (Pliskova) hits very flat and she hits quite late so it's difficult to tell where she's going to go."
Pliskova, 22, however has an idea where she wants to be going.
"I always knew if I can keep to my game, serve good, and play aggressive from the baseline, and if it's going, I can really, like, beat everyone," she said.
However, perhaps the most likely player to burst on to the 2015 scene in a big way is Garbine Muguruza, a 21-year-old Spaniard who plays fearlessly and who overwhelmed an ailing Radwanska by 6-4 6-2.
Another Spaniard, Carla Suarez Navarro, accounted for Kvitova by 6-3 4-6 6-3.
Kvitova was aware of the danger from the start.
"I think, like, the top 50 is pretty same level, and only in the small, important key points it's different," she said.
"Everybody can beat everyone in the top. And, yeah, maybe it's nice for the fans to see something new."
Simona Halep, the top seed, and Caroline Wozniacki, the former world number one, both survived - a relief to tournament stakeholders fearful of losing all the famous names.
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