Venus Williams dumped out of French Open

THIRD seed Venus Williams crashed out of the French Open in straight sets to Agnes Szavay, who reaches the fourth round at Roland Garros.

BELOW-PAR: Venus Williams bows out of the French Open with a lacklustre performance in Paris (Getty Images)

Szavay - seeded 29th - raced through the opening set without reply before Williams showed some fight in the second.

Williams broke the Hungarian's serve but immediately relinquished her own to bring the set to 4-4 - and it didn't take long for Szavay to seal the victory, winning 6-0, 6-4. to progress past the third round in Paris for the first time.

The American did not look at the races with a high number of unforced errors and, even when staring down the barrel of defeat, failed to raise her game.

Williams has won seven Grand Slam titles in her career but has not got past the quarter-final stage at Roland Garros.

She also bowed out at the same stage of the tournament last year to Flavia Pennetta of Italy in straight sets.

The five-time Wimbledon champion has endured a torrid week, having been handed a tough schedule by the touraments organisers and was forced to return to court yesterday to finish a gruelling three-set match with Lucie Safarova.

Meanwhile, top seed Dinara Safina continued her challenge for a first Grand Slam title with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Safina has been in superb form at Roland Garros, beating Great Britain's Anne Keothavong 6-0, 6-0, compatriot Vitalia Diatchenko 6-1, 6-1 and dropping only four games on her way to the fourth round.

Pavlyuchenkova, in just her second appearance at Roland Garros, ran Safina closer than the scoreline suggests in the opening set.

But the 17-year-old looked rattled in the second as Safina took charge and played superbly.

Pavlyuchenkova did not lie down without a fight though and saved three match points before eventually succumbing to Safina's class.

Earlier today, defending champion Ana Ivanovic eased her way into round four with a comfortable 6-0, 6-2 victory over Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic.

And in the men's draw, fourth seed Novak Djokovic wasted no time in advancing, having resumed over night two sets to the good against Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky.

Still to play to today is defending champion and top seed Rafael Nadal as he takes on former world number one Lleyton Hewitt, while Andy Murray bids to reach the fourth round for the first time in his career.