diff --git a/spacy/tokenizer.pyx b/spacy/tokenizer.pyx
index e3a587dbd..0779a0df3 100644
--- a/spacy/tokenizer.pyx
+++ b/spacy/tokenizer.pyx
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 from cython.operator cimport dereference as deref
 from cython.operator cimport preincrement as preinc
+from libc.stdlib cimport qsort
 from libc.string cimport memcpy, memset
 from libcpp.set cimport set as stdset
 from libc.stdio cimport printf
@@ -324,7 +325,7 @@ cdef class Tokenizer:
         cdef int seen_i
         cdef MatchStruct span
         cdef stdset[int] seen_tokens
-        stdsort(original.begin(), original.end(), len_start_cmp)
+        qsort(&original[0], original.size(), sizeof(MatchStruct), len_start_cmp)
         cdef int orig_i = original.size() - 1
         while orig_i >= 0:
             span = original[orig_i]
@@ -333,7 +334,8 @@ cdef class Tokenizer:
             for seen_i in range(span.start, span.end):
                 seen_tokens.insert(seen_i)
             orig_i -= 1
-        stdsort(filtered.begin(), filtered.end(), start_cmp)
+        qsort(&filtered[0], filtered.size(), sizeof(MatchStruct), start_cmp)
+        #stdsort(filtered.begin(), filtered.end(), start_cmp)
 
     cdef int _try_cache(self, hash_t key, Doc tokens) except -1:
         cached = <_Cached*>self._cache.get(key)
@@ -689,17 +691,15 @@ def _get_regex_pattern(regex):
     return None if regex is None else regex.__self__.pattern
 
 
-cdef extern from "<algorithm>" namespace "std" nogil:
-    void stdsort "sort"(vector[MatchStruct].iterator,
-                        vector[MatchStruct].iterator,
-                        bint (*)(MatchStruct, MatchStruct))
-
-
-cdef bint len_start_cmp(MatchStruct a, MatchStruct b) nogil:
+cdef int len_start_cmp(const void *a_p, const void *b_p) nogil:
+    cdef MatchStruct a = (<MatchStruct*>a_p)[0];
+    cdef MatchStruct b = (<MatchStruct*>b_p)[0];
     if a.end - a.start == b.end - b.start:
-        return a.start < b.start
-    return a.end - a.start < b.end - b.start
+        return a.start - b.start
+    return (a.end - a.start) - (b.end - b.start)
 
 
-cdef bint start_cmp(MatchStruct a, MatchStruct b) nogil:
-    return a.start < b.start
+cdef int start_cmp(const void *a_p, const void *b_p) nogil:
+    cdef MatchStruct a = (<MatchStruct*>a_p)[0];
+    cdef MatchStruct b = (<MatchStruct*>b_p)[0];
+    return a.start - b.start