Wozniacki and Zvonareva survive on Brussels clay

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Wilson Blade 9

Top two seeds at the inaugural Premier-level tournament of the Brussels Open, Caroline Wozniacki and Vera Zvonareva, both advanced to the quarterfinals, but not without considerable effort.

Zvonareva found herself 6-2 3-2 down against Galina Voskoboeva, before rallying back to beat the Kazakh qualifier 2-6 6-4 6-3. The Russian said she needed some time to get accustomed to the new court and new atmosphere, while her opponent got that sort of preparation during qualifying.

As for the world No.1 Wozniacki, she rallied from a break down in both sets to defeat American Varvara Lepchenko 6-4 7-6(5) on the fifth match point. In their only previous meeting, which was also on clay, Wozniacki was much more productive, defeating Lepchenko 6-3 6-1 in Madrid in 2009.

All the other seeded players won their second round matches on Wednesday, including Francesca Schiavone, Yanina Wickmayer, Alexandra Dulgheru and Peng Shuai, but there is one exception: fourth seed Jelena Jankovic was upset by Sofia Arvidsson 3-6 6-3 6-3.

At the International-level event, Internationaux de Strasbourg, which is also played this week, all the seeds went through the second round, including No.1 Marion Bartoli and No.2 Andrea Petkovic. Bojana Jovanovski was defeated by seventh seed Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-2 6-0, and Jelena Dokic also played and lost to qualifier Mirjana Lucic 6-2 6-2. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

4 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t understand why are so much players in top 10, I think 4,are playing this tournament, especially Caroline, when RG is begining next week. I understand they might need more matches, but Caroline plays way too much. While she should be in Paris relaxing and preparing for GS which we all know she needs so bad, she’s playing in a minor tournament against a lot weaker opponents and just waisting her strenght. I think she is pushing it way too hard, playing 5 tournaments on clay and training like 8 hours a day won’t necessarily win her a Slam, there’s a lot more than that.

  2. @ mirjana: totally agreed with you.

    look at atp. none of the top players does this which these wta girls are doing. and then they end up with an injury. Seems like they dont have a plan. they dont know which tournament they should be going for and which they should not be going for. As for wozniaki i think she believes in playing lots of tournaments to gather ponts. COmpared to her zvonerava plays comparatively less tournaments. for zvonareva i think she missed rome thats why she is here. but she should have gone for rome rather than playing here. and i agree on your that point that they ae trying to have matches under their belts but that is just oing to leave them tired for the GS….

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