Halep and Wozniacki crash out in Wuhan
Simona Halep's was unceremoniously dumped out of the Wuhan Open by Daria Kasatkina and Caroline Wozniacki also made an early exit, while Garbine Muguruza reached the third round.
Halep had not played since losing to Maria Sharapova in the first round of the US Open and looked rusty in a crushing 6-2 6-1 loss to unseeded Russian Kasatkina, which put paid to her hopes of replacing Muguruza at the top of the rankings.
Kasatkina knocked French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko out at Flushing Meadows and has also beaten Angelique Kerber this year.
The 20-year-old world number 31 made light work of claiming the scalp of second seed Halep, breaking the disgruntled French Open runner-up four times in the first set and twice in the second to ease through.
Meanwhile Caroline Wozniacki thrashed Muguruza at the semi-final stage en route to retaining her Tokyo Open title last week, but the fourth seed suffered a shock 7-5 6-3 loss to qualifier Maria Sakkari.
Muguruza required treatment in the first set, but saw off Lesia Tsurenko 6-4 6-4 after having her tape applied to her left thigh.
Sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova went down 6-3 6-3 to Alize Cornet a day after Sloane Stephens and defending champion Petra Kvitova were among the seeded casualties.
Karolina Pliskova, Dominika Cibulkova, new Korea Open champion Ostapenko, Agnieszka Radwanska and Elena Vesnina had no such trouble as they advanced to the last 16.
