Charleston (South Carolina): Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva and Nadia Petrova won at the Family Circle Cup on Tuesday, increasing the odds that at least one of the leading Russian seeds should reach the final again.
Top-seeded Dementieva won the first 10 games in defeating Julie Ditty of the United States 6-0, 6-2; No. 3 Vera Zvonareva beat Rossana de los Rios of Paraguay 6-3, 6-2; and No. 4 Petrova overcame a mid-match stumble to beat Patricia Mayr of Austria 6-1, 2-6, 6-2.
All three Russians have played in the final; Dementieva was runner-up in 2005, Petrova won in 2006, and Zvonareva lost in last year's final to Serena Williams, who has withdrawn from this year's event because of the leg she injured at Miami this month.
Dementieva was appearing for the first time since she climbed to a career-high world No. 3 ranking, while Zvonareva improved her record this year to 20-3 but made a sloppy start to her clay season by dropping serve four times.
Also through the second round after first-round byes were No. 6 Marion Bartoli, who has never gone any further, and No. 7 Dominika Cibulkova, for the first time.
Bartoli defeated Latvian qualifier Anastasija Sevastova 6-1, 6-3, and Cibulkova downed Tamira Paszek of Austria 6-4, 6-0.
Ninth-seeded Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada, the runner-up at Ponte Vedra Beach on Sunday, won her opener when she rallied past Abigail Spears of the United States 6-3, 4-6, 6-0.
Sania Mirza of India ended a three-match losing streak in beating Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-4, and bought a second-round match with 2004 champion Venus Williams.
Russian Alla Kudryavtseva's second win of the year, at the expense of American qualifier Angela Haynes 6-4, 5-7, 6-0, put her into a matchup with fifth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, the Ponte Vedra Beach champ.
Also through were Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States and Sabine Lisicki of Germany.
Meanwhile, basketball great Julius Erving watched his daughter Alexandra Stevenson play tennis for the first time, in a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan.
Erving watched from the porch of the players' clubhouse and did not speak to reporters.
Asked if it was the first time he had seen her play, Stevenson said, "Yes, that is true. And I actually didn't see him until the second set."
It's been a decade since the 28-year-old Stevenson learned that Dr. J was her father, about the time she made the Wimbledon semi-finals.
"We were never in a bad place, I just didn't know him," 191st-ranked Stevenson said. "So it's good now. I mean, obviously, it's still odd because you're getting to know somebody. But it's nice that I know him, and he's supporting me out here, coming to watch me play."
Comments
0 comment