Australian Open: Early Rounds

The first four days are complete at the Australian Open.  After a relatively blah first 3 days, the upsets were sprung on us from all sides on day 4, especially in the eighth of the draw headlined by Zvonareva and Williams, where potiential dark horses Kanepi and Cibulkova were spent spiraling from the draw by Makarova and Arn, respectively.

-23 seeds out before round 3 (11 men, 12 women)
-8 seeds out in round 1 (4 men, 4 women)
-14 seeds out in round 2 (6 men, 8 women)
-1 seed out prior to tournament (Mayer)

For comparison, in the 2011 Aussie Open, we had
-7 seeds out in round 1 (3 men, 4 women)
-15 seeds out in round 2 (7 men, 8 women)
(So almost identical.)

Here are the unlucky 23, with stars (out of 5 for shock factor):
6) Samantha Stosur (AUS)**, R1 l. to Cirstea
8) Mardy Fish (USA)****, R2 l. to Falla
10) Francesca Schiavone (ITA)***, R2 l. to Oprandi
12) Gilles Simon (FRA)***, R2 l. to Benneteau
15) Andy Roddick (USA)**, R2 l. to Hewitt (ret.)
15) Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS)****, R2 l. to King
16) Shuai Peng (CHN)*, R2 l. to Benesova
17) Dominika Cibulkova (SVK)***, R2 l. to Arn
19) Viktor Troicki (SRB)**, R2 l. to Kukushkin
19) Flavia Pennetta (ITA)**, R2 l. to Bratchikova
20) Florian Mayer (GER), withdrew due to injury
22) Fernando Verdasco (ESP)*, R1 l. to Tomic
23) Roberta Vinci (ITA)*, R1 l. to Zheng
24) Lucie Safarova (CZE)*, R1 l. to McHale
25) Juan Monaco (ARG)**, R1 l. to Kohlschreiber
25) Kaia Kanepi (EST)****, R2 l. to Makarova
26) Marcel Granollers (ESP)*, R2 l. to Gil
28) Ivan Ljubicic (CRO)**, R2 l. to Lacko
28) Yanina Wickmayer (BEL)**, R1 l. to Voskoboeva
29) Radek Stepanek (CZE)**, R1 l. to Mahut
29) Nadia Petrova (RUS)**, R2 l. to Errani
32) Alex Bogomolov Jr. (RUS)*, R1 l. to Llodra
32) Petra Cetkovska (CZE)*, R1 l. to Barthel

So nothing really earth shattering here, but certainly some surprising results.  And one star basically means we half-expected this result to happen anyway.

I have not been maintaining a live rankings spreadsheet for this major, in part because I have found other sources which already do it so I have decided not to bother with recreating my own list.  You can those links to the right.  The most recent win by Petra Kvitova eliminated Agnieszka Radwanska's slim chance at grasping the #1 ranking.  Azarenka and Wozniacki are currently tied for #2 behind Kvitova.