Ana Ivanovic suffers early exit at Wuhan Open

Ana Ivanovic is out of the Wuhan Open after being forced to retire during her first-round encounter with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

The Serbian ninth seed started the match in confident fashion as a break of serve allowed her to move into a commanding 3-0 lead.

However, Pavlyuchenkova broke back twice before converting her fifth set point to take the opener 7-5 after 53 minutes.

Both players exchanged breaks at the start of the second, but it was the Russian who broke again during a hard-fought seventh game to go 4-3 up.

Pavlyuchenkova, who will face either Roberta Vinci or Casey Dellacqua in the second round, was ready to serve for the match after going 6-5 ahead, but Ivanovic put an early end to the match when she was unable to continue.