Top seeds Samantha Stosur and Elena Dementieva made solid starts to their Stanford Classic campaigns with contrasting second-round victories on Wednesday.
No. 1 seeded Stosur overcame US qualifier Christina McHale 6-1, 7-5 while Russian second seed Dementieva was made to work a little harder on her return from injury before edging out Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Stosur, who is ranked a career high number five and top seeded in a WTA tournament for the first time, relied on her big serve and forehand to repel her 18-year-old opponent, who also served well but could not contend with the Australian’s power.
PHOTO: AFP
“I thought I played quite well,” Stosur told reporters. “She’s a good player and mixes in some spin. I got off to good start, but she stayed with me pretty well in the second.”
Stosur will face Yanina Wickmayer in today’s quarter-finals after the Belgian seventh seed eased past Slovakian Dominica Cibulkova 6-1, 6-4.
Stosur reached her first Grand Slam final at the French Open last month and credits her recent success to establishing a game plan and sticking to it.
“It’s not like I have changed anything dramatically overnight,” she said. “It’s just a combination of everything that I have been doing over the past few years and now it’s all coming together.”
“Once you produce some good results, it instills more belief,” she said.
Dementieva was playing her first match since retiring in her French Open semi-final against eventual champion Francesca Schiavone.
The 28-year-old Russian injured a calf muscle during the tournament and was forced to pull out of Wimbledon, missing a Grand Slam for the first time in 11 years.
She was clearly rusty in the first set against the savvy Date-Krumm but eventually found her range off the ground and was able to stretch her opponent out in rallies.
The 39-year-old Date-Krumm tried to claw her way back into the third set after going down 0-3 but Dementieva was too strong with her returns and closed out the contest with a forehand winner.
Third seed Agnieszka Radwanska also advanced with a 7-6 6-2 victory over Ukrainian Olga Savchuk.
■ISTANBUL CUP
AP, ISTANBUL, Turkey
Defending champion Vera Dushevina of Russia defeated Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 6-3, 6-7 (8), 6-2 on Wednesday in the second round of the Istanbul Cup.
After narrowly losing the tiebreaker, Dushevina never looked in trouble in the final set. She served six aces to one by Sevastova.
Anastasia Rodionova of Austria beat fifth-seeded Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria 6-1, 3-6, 6-2, and sixth-seeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany beat Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-3. Elena Vesnina of Russia downed Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland 6-3, 6-2.
■FARMERS CLASSIC
AP, LOS ANGELES
Second-seeded Sam Querrey struggled through two tough sets than breezed through the third to beat Kevin Anderson 7-6 (10), 4-6, 6-0 on Wednesday, opening the defense of his title at the Farmers Classic.
Querrey served out the 2 hour, 14-minute match on his second match point to improve to 3-0 against Anderson, a South African who was set to play the qualifying here, but avoided it when he advanced to the semi-finals last week in Atlanta. He received a special exemption into the main draw, and gave Querrey all he could handle until the third set.
In another second-round match, third-seeded Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus beat US wild-card Ryan Sweeting 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Baghdatis fired 11 aces and had the same number of winners in advancing to his fifth quarter-final of the year.
He’ll next play sixth-seeded Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, who beat Somdev Devvarman of India 7-6 (11), 6-2.
Rainer Schuettler of Germany outlasted American Robby Ginepri 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in their first meeting since 2003.
■SWISS OPEN
AP, GSTAAD, Switzerland
Seeded players Albert Montanes and Richard Gasquet each rallied from a set down to win on Wednesday.
Fourth-seeded Montanes from Spain, who is seeking a third title on outdoor clay courts this season, beat Austrian qualifier Andreas Haider-Maurer 3-6, 6-1, 6-0.
No. 7 Gasquet from France held serve throughout his second-round match on Wednesday to beat Daniel Brands of Germany 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-0.
In a match between unseeded players, Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver had a 7-5, 6-4 win against Andreas Beck of Germany.
Gimeno-Traver next faces Igor Andreev of Russia or Switzerland’s Marco Chiudinelli, whose match was suspended by darkness with the score 6-6 in the third set.
Andreev won the first set 6-3, wasted a match point in the second set tiebreaker and lost serve when leading 5-3 in the decider.
■CROATIA OPEN
AP, UMAG, Croatia
Defending champion Nikolay Davydenko beat Stephane Robert of France 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
The top-seeded Russian will meet Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina, who defeated Italian qualifier Simone Bolelli 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 6-1.
Juan Carlos Ferrero, last year’s finalist, downed Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 for his 25th clay-court victory of the season, including two titles.
The former No. 1 will play Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine, who beat Croatian wild card Franco Skugor 7-6 (1), 6-3.
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