French Open champion Francesca Schiavone beat local favorite Kimiko Date Krumm 6-3, 6-3 to reach the Pan Pacific Open quarter-finals on Wednesday, while top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki cruised in.
Wozniacki overpowered Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 6-1, 6-2.
Date Krumm beat defending champion Maria Sharapova in the first round and celebrated her 40th birthday on Tuesday with a win over Daniela Hantuchova, but was no match for the fifth-seeded Italian.
PHOTO: EPA
Schiavone overpowered Date Krumm with solid groundstrokes, breaking serve three times in the first set to lead 5-1.
Date Krumm fought back in the second to take a 3-2 lead, but was broken in the seventh game and couldn’t recover.
“I said to her at the end it was an honor to play her,” Schiavone said. “I’ve followed her career and she’s not just a great tennis player, she’s a great person. To come back and show the people anything is possible is really inspiring. And today we were playing on the senior tour — we were 70 together!”
Date Krumm, the Tokyo champion in 1995, turned professional in 1989 and retired in 1996, before resuming her career nearly 12 years later. Earlier this year, she became the oldest woman to beat a top 10 player when she defeated Dinara Safina at the French Open.
Date Krumm played last week in Seoul and said her busy schedule was a factor in yesterday’s defeat.
“This morning, I felt a little bit tired,” she said. “She used a lot of spin and made me run very wide so I ended up tired.”
Meanwhile, Wozniacki overpowered Pavlyuchenkova for the fifth straight time — and third time this year — and will meet No. 6 seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the quarter-finals.
THAILAND OPEN
AP, NONTHABURI, THAILAND
Jurgen Melzer of Austria improved the best season of his career when he beat Dudi Sela of Israel 6-3, 6-4 to reach his 10th quarterfinals this year at the Thailand Open yesterday.
The third-seeded Melzer, a semi-finalist here last year, downed Sela for the third time this year.
“Dudi is a tough opponent. He makes you play a lot of balls. He is very dangerous,” the 13th-ranked Melzer said. “I’m pleased with the way I played today.”
In tomorrow’s quarter-finals he will meet either No. 7-seeded Viktor Troicki of Serbia or Jarkko Nieminen of Finland.
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain outlasted Florent Serra of France 7-5, 6-7 (3), 7-5 in two hours, 43 minutes to avenge a quarterfinal loss in April in the Casablanca quarter-finals.
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