Former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic showed flashes of the form that took her to the pinnacle of tennis as she upset ninth-seed Victoria Azarenka 2-6, 7-6 (6), 6-2 in the first round of the Cincinnati Open on Monday.
Serb Ivanovic, a first-round casualty at San Diego last week, had appeared set for another early exit before rallying to beat the in-form Belarusian, who won the Stanford Classic earlier this month.
The 2008 French Open champion Ivanovic briefly held the world’s top ranking that year, but a subsequent collapse in form and a series of niggling injuries have seen her ranking slip to 62nd. The Serb was joined in the second round by another fallen former top-ranked player in Russia’s Dinara Safina, who eased to a 7-5, 6-4 win over Italy’s Roberta Vinci.
PHOTO: AFP
Safina will now face US Open champion Kim Clijsters in the second-round match. Clijsters has not played on the women’s tour since her Wimbledon quarter-final defeat.
Clijsters got a first-round bye at Cincinnati along with defending champion and top-seeded Jelana Jankovic.
Jankovic will open against 71st-ranked Vera Dushevina, who beat Anastasia Rodionova 6-2, 7-6 (7).
No. 13 Shahar Peer became the first seeded player to advance on Monday when Olga Govortsova retired while trailing 6-3, 4-1. Peer will meet Nuria Llagostera Vives in the second round. Vives needed three sets to overcome Vania King, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, while Sara Errani moved on with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Jamie Hampton.
No. 16 Marion Bartoli also advanced with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Anabel Medina Garrigues and will next play Alona Bondarenko, a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 winner over Dominika Cibulkova.
In other first-round matches, qualifier Bojana Jovanovski rallied to upset 14th-seeded Aravane Rezai 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The first-round loss was the second straight for Rezai. The 19th-ranked Frenchwoman lost in the first round last week at San Diego.
Jovanovski, ranked 98th, will meet Akgul Amanmuradova in the second round. Amanmuradova cruised past Kimiko Date Krumm 6-1, 6-2 in a matchup of qualifiers.
Qualifier Monica Niculescu beat 91st-ranked Sabine Lisicki 6-3, 6-0, Yaroslava Shvedova defeated Alla Kudryavtseva 7-5, 6-4, qualifier Ayumi Morita knocked off Arantxa Parra Santonja 7-6 (7), 6-2, and Alisa Kleybanova beat Alexandra Dulgheru, 6-4, 6-4.
Jankovic said she is hoping to get tournament-tough with a long string of matches.
She is coming off a first-round loss last week in San Diego, her first match since injuring her left ankle in the second round of a tournament in Slovenia in the middle of last month.
“My ankle’s OK,” said Jankovic, who also had to retire from her fourth-round match at Wimbledon with lower back problems. “I’ve been able to practice the last couple of days. Now, it’s feeling good. I’m looking forward to getting back to playing.”
■ROGERS CUP
REUTERS, TORONTO
Canadian wildcard Peter Polansky provided the opening day fireworks at the Rogers Cup in Toronto on Monday with a 7-6, 6-4 upset over 13th-seeded Austrian Jurgen Melzer in front of an appreciative home crowd.
With the opening night fireworks display delayed because of overcast conditions, it was up to the 22-year-old Polansky to deliver the excitement before handing center court over to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic for a doubles match.
Polansky, ranked 207, delivered and became the first Canadian to beat a top-15 opponent on home court since 2003 when Simon Larose stunned Gustavo Kuerten.
“I had some good practice against top guys so I came out here today really believing I could beat this guy and that’s what I did,” Polansky told reporters. “I’m just so happy the way I played. I stayed focused the whole match.”
Growing up near the tournament’s center court, there was no shortage of support for Polansky as he recorded just his second career ATP Tour win.
However, it was another letdown for Melzer as the loss marked the fourth consecutive time he has exited the tournament in the first round.
Russian 12th-seed Mikhail Youzhny survived two lengthy rain delays and a traffic jam to outlast Frenchman Gilles Simon and advance with a 6-4, 6-4 victory.
The early match at the tournament began 30 minutes late with Simon caught in traffic and it finished almost eight hours later after rain twice interrupted play.
Down a set but up 4-1 in the second when rain halted play a second time for five hours, Simon returned to the court and lost five straight games to end a dreary afternoon.
It was a bad day all around for the French contingent as Richard Gasquet, a former finalist in Canada, joined Simon at the exit after a 7-5, 6-1 loss to Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky.
Argentina’s Juan Ignacio Chela advanced with tidy 6-0, 6-3 win over Colombian Alejandro Falla and earned a second-round meeting with world No. 3 and twice Canadian champion Roger Federer of Switzerland.
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