Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and her partner, Janette Husarova of Slovakia, cruised into the quarter-finals of the doubles competition at the WTA Southern California Open on Monday with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic and Austria’s Tamira Paszek.
Chan and Husarova won seven of 11 break-point chances as their opponents served up 10 double faults to set up a quarter-final with top seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Kvete Peschke of the Czech Republic.
In the singles, Australian fifth seed Samantha Stosur, coming off a shock first-round loss last week, defeated Varvara Lepchenko of the US 7-5, 6-1.
Photo: AFP
Stosur, the 2011 US Open champion, fell behind 3-1 in the opening set, before rallying to capture it in 57 minutes and cruise to victory in her opener at the WTA Tour hard-court event.
“I got off to a little bit of a slow start, losing my first two service games. That isn’t how you want to start matches, but if you start poorly then end well, that’s all that matters,” Stosur said. “I got through that little rough patch at the start and then found my groove a little bit more.”
Stosur had been planning to take the week off and return to her Florida training camp ahead of tournaments the following two weeks in Toronto and Cincinnati, but her crash out at Stanford last week forced a change of plan.
“After not doing as well as I wanted last week, I thought coming here would be a pretty good opportunity to play those matches, and try and build on something a little bit,” she said. “No matter how bad or good you play, if you win you always feel better. Last week was pretty disappointing. To come here and win today in a nicer feeling.”
In other opening singles matches, two-time Grand Slam singles champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia was ousted by France’s Virginie Razzano 6-2, 6-4, while 2010 French Open winner Francesca Schiavone beat fellow Italian Flavia Pennetta 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (6/8), 6-4.
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