The WTA Tour portion of the Sony Ericsson Open represents a bomb shelter after a wild weekend in South Florida.

Before the round of 16 begins, the women’s bracket has already been blown wide open. Third-seeded Jelena Jankovic lost to Gisela Dulko in the second round on Saturday night, 6-4, 7-6 (5), while second-seeded Dinara Safina crashed out of Miami in third round action on Sunday, bowing to Samantha Stosur in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1.

There were other upsets to be found at the Crandon Park Tennis Center, but for now, let’s take a look at the two huge disappointments to emerge from the women’s draw.

Jankovic and Safina have very little excuse for not making a reasonably deep run (the quarterfinals at minimum) in the last hardcourt event before the spring clay season. Jankovic lost her first match at Indian Wells two weeks ago, which meant that the 2008 U.S. Open runner-up enjoyed more rest coming into this event than most of her peers on tour. The failure to win a single match in the two most important non-Grand Slam events of the year represents a huge blot on the resume of a woman who still enjoys a top-five world ranking. Jankovic, who lost in the fourth round at this year’s Australian Open, has seen her fortunes plummet after a strong conclusion to her 2008 season. Consistency defines elite tennis players, and for Jankovic, the milestone of her first Slam final (last September in New York) has been followed by ambush losses more than by reputation-enhancing victories. If anyone in the WTA needs a bounce-back clay season, it’s Jankovic.

For Safina, the story of this Miami meltdown also offers cause for concern, only on a smaller scale than Jankovic. Safina–the 2009 Australian Open runner-up–pieced together a decent Indian Wells event by reaching the quarterfinals, but such a showing still enabled the Russian to get out of California well before the final weekend of that particular competition. Turnaround time in Miami was substantial for the younger sister of Marat Safin; another quarterfinal result was certainly expected on America’s other coastline.

The hard reality for Safina to digest isn’t necessarily her early-round defeat, but the way in which it happened. Stosur, an Australian ranked 42nd in the world, has very few major achievements to her credit as a singles player. Stosur owns 22 career doubles titles, but has never made the quarterfinals of a single slam tournament. For a player of Safina’s caliber to win only five games against Stosur is nothing less than a complete train wreck. That’s not what a No. 2 seed should do in an event of appreciable stature.

The women’s tennis world is left with a weird yet undeniable storyline: The losers of the last two Grand Slam singles finals have both spiraled downward in the months following their moments in the spotlight. The greatest winners handle the heat, no matter the time or season. Jelena Jankovic and Dinara Safina have found themselves in the thick of championship matches at major events, but if they don’t learn how to develop more consistency on tour, their careers will fall short of their considerable potential.

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