World number one Dinara Safina was upset 7-5, 7-6 by local wild card Zhang Shuai in the second round of the $6.6 million China Open on Monday, leaving Serena Williams one victory away from reclaiming top spot in the rankings.
Serena just needs to beat Ekaterina Makarova in her second round match at the Olympic tennis centre on Tuesday to move up from number two after Safina crumbled in the face of a fierce onslaught from the 226th ranked Zhang.
Russian Safina, who lost her opening match at last week's Pan Pacific Open to a qualifier, made 20 unforced errors and 12 double faults before leaving the centre court in tears. Her post-match news conference was cancelled.
"I was really excited this morning, I wasn't thinking about the result, I was just thinking about learning as much as I could from her," said 20-year-old Zhang, who won the first WTA main draw match of her career in the first round on Sunday.
"She was not on her best form, she was impatient and made lots of mistakes."
Serena's sister Venus, the world number three, also had a bad day, losing to Russian teenager Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova for the second week in a row, this time 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
The world number 39 refused to be awed by Williams and dominated the final two sets of the match to claim her second win over the seven-times grand slam winner after last Monday's upset in Tokyo.
"She played really well, unfortunately sometimes I made errors too soon in the play," Williams, 29, said in a brief news conference. "Twelve double faults didn't help me today, I wasn't counting those, though."
Williams began well but got an inkling of the fight that was to come when her 18-year-old opponent took her to six deuces as she was serving for the first set.
"She started way aggressive today. She wanted to kill me, I guess," Pavlyuchenkova told reporters.
The Russian raced through the second set, wobbled a bit losing her serve to love at 5-2 in the third, but held her nerve to serve out for the match two games later.
"I had nothing to lose," Pavlyuchenkova added. "I just tried to move her around as much as I could, just hit as hard as I could in the court and just enjoy the match."
Sixth seeded French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova joined her compatriot in the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues.
Earlier on centre court, Novak Djokovic shrugged off the effects of jet lag to become the first seed to reach the men's second round with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Victor Hanescu.
"That's the first round, you have to get used to the ups and downs," said the 22-year-old, who was playing his first match since his US Open semi-final defeat to Roger Federer.
"I am aware I need to raise my level of performance to get far in the tournament."
In other men's first round action, eighth seeded Croatian Marin Cilic beat Igor Andreev 6-4, 6-4, while Spain's Tommy Robredo thrashed German Benjamin Becker 6-2, 6-1.
