Seeded players were mostly successful as the bottom half of the draw played the second round at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
Two of the Top 8 seeds in action cruised, No.2 seed Dinara Safina and No.7 Ana Ivanovic. Seed No.4 Elena Dementieva and No.8 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova survived their three-setters.
No.11 seed Victoria Azarenka defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2 6-2, the player who was shining last week at Indian Wells. Wildcard Jelena Dokic reached the second round, but couldn’t overcome Caroline Wozniacki, and lost 6-3 5-7 6-2.
Seed No.15 Flavia Pennetta edged doubles partner Maria Kirilenko, while No.12 seed Marion Bartoli became the first big upset of the week, falling to qualifier Anastasiya Yakimova 6-4 6-3 and enabling Yakimova to score her first Top 20 win.
Seed No.27 seed Sybille Bammer and No.28 seed Alona Bondarenko were also upset, falling easily to Samantha Stosur and Nicole Vaidisova, 6-1 6-1 and 6-1 6-0, respectively.
Others advanced well, including: No.18 seed Patty Schnyder, No.20 seed Amelie Mauresmo, No.22 seed Anna Chakvetadze, No.24 seed Alisa Kleybanova, No.25 seed Agnes Szavay and No.31 seed Carla Suarez Navarro.
Azarenka Ivanovic rematch for round of 16? That would be fun…
Yakimova doesn’t have any big shots, she did what she does best – defensive percentage game, sheer persistence, funnily enough not unlike Peer whom she lost at Indian Wells.
Nice photo of Marion Marija.
Thanks, Alice. Although, it wasn’t me who took the photo. 🙂 It’s Getty Images, but the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour gave me the right to use it.