2011 Sony Ericsson Open WTA Part 20: Daniela Hantuchova and Lucie Safarova
World Number 30 Daniela Hantuchova
World Number 30 Daniela Hantuchova is the second-highest ranked Slovakian professional tennis player on the Women’s Tennis Association, and has been part of the professional tour since 1999. The player has won four WTA singles titles up to date, and was
ranked as high as World Number 5 back in 2003.
Hantuchova played her first Miami tournament in 2000, when she was ranked World Number 157. The player had turned professional just a year ago, and could not perform well enough to fend off Elena Dementieva’s attacks in the first round.
Her best performance at the tournament was at the 2010 Sony Ericsson Open, when she was ranked World Number 25 and seeded nineteenth. The player received a bye in the first round, and went on to defeat Swiss pro Patty Schnyder in the next round. After this,
Hantuchova successfully upset sixteenth seed Nadia Petrova before falling to Venus Williams in the fourth round of the tournament.
This year, Daniela Hantuchova was ranked twenty-ninth at the Sony Ericsson Open. She received a bye in the first round, and went on to defeat American tennis pro Melanie Oudin in her first match. Her run did not last long, and the Slovak player was defeated
in the third round by current World Number 1 Caroline Wozniacki.
World Number 31 Lucie Safarova
Czech tennis pro Lucie Safarova is currently ranked World Number 31, and has been part of the pro circuit since 2002. She has spent almost ten years as a WTA professional pro, and her highest ranking so far is World Number 22. The 24-year-old has won four
WTA singles titles so far.
The player made her Miami debut in 2006 as a seeded player, with a WTA ranking of World Number 31. She received a bye in the first round, but could not make it past her second round match against unseeded pro Michaella Krajicek.
Safarova has managed to make it to the third round of the tournament three times prior to 2011, also managing to reproduce this result at the 2010 Sony Ericsson Open. She was unseeded as World Number 41, and defeated Kaia Kanepi of Estonia in the first round
to reach the second round against Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain. She was ousted in the third round by Belarusian pro Victoria Azarenka, who was seeded fourth at the tournament.
The Czech pro repeated her 2010 performance this year, and proceeded directly to the second round as one of the top 32 seeds. Although she defeated Patty Schnyder in the first round, the player could not perform against Aussie pro Samantha Stosur and was
ousted in the third round.
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