PARIS (Reuters) – A tortured and tormented Venus Williams whimpered out of the French Open yesterday while Portuguese teenager Michelle Larcher de Brito made a very noisy departure from the big stage.

After labouring through her first match, surviving a match point in the second, American third seed Williams was finally put out of her misery in the third round when she was tossed out by rising Hungarian Agnes Szavay 6-0 6-4.

But the tournament’s first real shock could not match the commotion created by a 16-year-old grand slam debutante. Fans scrambled for their earplugs at Roland Garros when the decibel level went up several notches before France’s Aravane Rezai finally silenced Larcher de Brito 7-6 6-2.

While Larcher de Brito deafened fans, top seeds Rafael Nadal and Dinara Safina made serene progress. Four-times champion Nadal barely broke into a sweat as he overcame potential banana skin Lleyton Hewitt in a 6-1 6-3 6-1 hammering to extend his Paris record to 31-0. The only drama came in the final point when Hewitt was unsure if Nadal had unleashed his seventh ace to win the match. The pockmark on the clay confirmed he had. Russian Safina set up a last-16 date with Rezai by thundering past teenage compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2 6-0 and holder Ana Ivanovic pulled off an equally emphatic 6-0 6-2 drubbing of Czech Iveta Benesova.

Men’s fourth seed Novak Djokovic wasted little time in finishing off Ukrainian qualifier Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-3 6-4 6-1 in their interrupted second round match. In the only other upset, Romanian Victor Hanescu beat seventh seed Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-4 6-4 6-2. Former champion Juan Carlos Ferrero also went out following a 6-4 2-6 6-4 6-7 6-3 defeat by Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round.

Eighth seed Fernando Verdasco reached the fourth round for the third year running when he won the all-Spanish battle 6-2 7-6 7-6 against Nicolas Almagro.