It Was an Ill Wind for Two Seeded Players : Tennis: Gusts help sweep Fernandez and Raymond out of women’s tournament in Manhattan Beach.

A swirling wind rushed through the Manhattan Country Club on Wednesday, sweeping away two seeded players and leaving the rest dazed and grateful to get through.

Twelve of the tournament’s top 16 seeded players took the court at the Acura Classic, only to be greeted by wind gusts that ran off with high service tosses and nudged balls over lines.

“It was much windier on court than I thought,” said fourth-seeded Lindsay Davenport. “I felt OK, but it’s deceiving to play in the wind.”

Davenport defeated Elena Makarova, 6-3, 6-4, in a second-round match.

Other seeded players were not so fortunate. Yayuk Basuki defeated seventh-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez, 6-2, 7-5, and Asa Carlsson, who beat Venus Williams on Monday night, defeated 11th-seeded Lisa Raymond, 6-3, 6-3. Thirteenth-seeded Marianne Werdel Witmeyer withdrew with a strained quadriceps.

Among seeded players who advanced, sixth-seeded Natasha Zvereva defeated Florencia Labat, 6-2, 7-5, and 10th-seeded Chanda Rubin defeated Gigi Fernandez, 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-1).

Top-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario didn’t have to contend with the wind, or an opponent. Sanchez Vicario advanced via a walkover after Kathy Rinaldi contracted food poisoning Tuesday night.

Sanchez Vicario will be in the third round before she plays her first match.

Second-seeded Conchita Martinez didn’t make things easy for herself against Julie Halard in the night match, which featured less wind but a bracing chill. Martinez won, 6-7 (8-6), 6-0, 6-3, but waited until after the first set to display the form that has gained her five titles this season, most recently last week.

Halard, who is seeded No. 15, should have been turned back any number of times in the first set but she persevered and squeaked by in the tiebreaker.

Martinez punished Halard in the second set, breaking each of the Frenchwoman’s service games and asserted herself in the third with her high-bouncing topspin shots.

“It was a little weird in the first set,” Martinez said. “I think I rushed too much. I didn’t have any patience. She played weird, hitting soft balls--you never knew what was coming. I couldn’t get any rhythm. I played better after I got more aggressive.”

In her match, Davenport was careful not to be too aggressive, lest she aggravate a lingering injury. Davenport is nursing a mysterious injury to her lower left leg, which was originally diagnosed as shin splints and has since gone from a stress fracture to tendinitis and back to shin splints. She has not played since leading the U.S. Fed Cup team to a semifinal victory over France in mid-July.

Her inactivity and its attendant rustiness caused Davenport to miss a few break opportunities.

“I lost concentration a little bit,” she said. “I probably should have been concentrating a little harder to break her.”

Also displaying fleeting powers of concentration was Zvereva, who steamrollered in the the first set and was serving at 5-3 in the second but failed to put the game away. Zvereva was as irreverent as ever, candidly admitting to burnout and boredom.

“I am in very weak shape right now, I can tell you that,” Zvereva said, laughing. “I want to relax more these days. My body is not ready. Maybe I need a bit of a break.”