Sybase Match Play Championship - 1st Round

Eight of the top 10 seeds - Na Yeon Choi, Cristie Kerr, Yani Tseng, Suzann Pettersen, Ai Miyazato, In-Kyung Kim, Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer - advanced through the first round at the Sybase Match Play Championship.  Other high seeds advancing included Inbee Park and defending champion Sun Young Yoo.

Jiyai Shin and Song-Hee Kim were the only Top Ten'ers to fall - #2 Shin at the hands of Meena Lee 2-up and #8 Kim to Sophie Gustafson 3&1.  The Teen Seeds suffered greatly - #12 Katherine Hull went down to Shanshan Feng 2&1, #13 Morgan Pressel lost to Julieta Granada 1-up (arguably the day's biggest upset), #14 Amy Yang (my pick to win the whole she-bang) rallied from three down but lost to Kyeong Bae 1-up and #15 Brittany Lincicome never led as Wendy Ward won 4&3.  All told, only 14 of the 32 matches were won by the favorites.

The good news for most of you who filled out brackets - eight of those fourteen were Top 10 seeds so you probably had a few of those going deep into the event.  Even with Yang's early exit I still have six of my final eight alive (Catriona Matthew didn't make  me a genius - she lost to Choi 3&2).  Hitting only 16 out of 32 on opening day feels rotten though, and I imagine a lot of you suffered likewise.  Upsets I did call right were Feng over Hull, Karen Stupples (2&1 over Se Ri Pak) and Paige Mackenzie (2&1 over Karine Icher).  Because of this carnage, only two of Friday's matches pair players both from the top 32 seeds - #10 Creamer vs. #23 Karrie Webb and #9 Wie vs. #24 Anna Nordqvist.  Three of them feature players whose combined seeds break triple-digits - #47 Bae vs. #56 Hee Kyung Seo, #42 Gustafson vs. #61 Mackenzie and #40 Seon Hwa Lee vs #62 Granada.  The full slate of matches can be found here.

Four matches required extra holes, most notably the one concerning the defending champion.  Grace Park birdied 18 to square the match, which went to the third extra hole before Yoo birdied from long range to win.  Grace had an eagle try to win on the 20^th hole but came up just short.  Gotta give an early Shout-Out for Grace's performance today!  In the other extended matches, Ai Miyazato and Belen Mozo needed 21 holes apiece to oust Hee Young Park and Azahara Munoz respectively while Stacy Lewis defeated Katie Futcher on the first extra hole.

The tape-delayed coverage on Golf Channel continues tonight until 8:30pm EDT and re-airs at 2am EDT.