Tournament top seed and Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli of France was sent packing by American Vania King in the first round of the $175,000 WTA Tour event at the Netaji Indoor stadium here on Tuesday.
"A lot of things went wrong today," said the Frenchwoman. King, with wheels for feet, chased down balls Bartoli thought were winners. The 18-year-old's brilliant retrievals did have the Frenchwoman in all sorts of trouble. King's amazing ground strokes too caught the top seed napping.
The forehand down the lines and the two-fisted backhand winners flowed from her racquet thick and fast. Bartoli was just a mute spectator to King's brilliance. She did hold her opening service game, but it was King all the way thereafter, reeling off five games in a row to take the opening set.
Bartoli just hung in there. A handful of Globosport officials were right behind her, cheering her every winner. But they were few and far between. The script didn't change, King continued to call the shots. Though she was the beneficiary of a couple of contentious line calls, she did play the big points better.
King broke Bartoli in the ninth game of the second set, but the top seed broke right back with a couple of great points. The 18-year-old American's three amazing great down-the-line winners gave her the decisive break in the eleventh game. But it was all over bar the shouting when Bartoli sent a forehand into the net in the next game.
Earlier in the evening, India's Sunitha Rao, looking down the wrong side of the barrel for the better part of the match, turned things around to score a fine 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 come-from-behind win over lucky loser Sandy Gumulya. 
Results (first round):
Singles: Anastasia Rodionova (Rus) bt Hana Sromova (Cze) 6-3, 6-2; Sofia Arvidsson (Swe) bt Alberta Brianti (Ita) 6-2, 7-5; Tatiana Poutchek (Blr) bt Alla Kudryavtseva (Rus) 6-3, 6-3; Akgul Amanduradova (Uzb) bt Edina Gallovits (Rom) 6-2 (retd.); Tzipora Obziler (Isr) bt Yaroslava Shvedova (Rus) 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (8-10), 6-1; Sunitha Rao (Ind) bt Sandy Gumulya (Ina) 2-6, 6-4, 6-2; Vania King (US) bt Marion Bartoli (Fra) 6-1, 7-5.
Doubles: Tara Iyer (Ind)/ Aleksandra Wozniak (Can) bt Julia Efremova/ Ekaterina Ivanova (Rus) 6-4, 7-5; Anne Keothavong (GBR)/ Hana Sromova (Cze) w/o Jarmila Gajdosova (Svk)/ E Gallovits (Rom); T Poutchek (Blr)/ A Rodionova (Rus) bt A Amanmuradova (Uzb)/ Casey Dellacqua (Aus) 6-4, 6-0; Sara Errani/ Flavia Pennetta (Ita) bt Sanaa Bhambri/ Isha Lakhani (Ind) 6-2, 6-0.