Svetlana Kuznetsova and Sabine Lisicki moved on to the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open
World number 14, Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia outplayed Simona Halep of Romania in the second round of the Sony Ericsson Open at Miami, Florida on Thursday evening. The Russian cruised her way through the contest to achieve straight
sets 6-0, 6-4 victory, taking just 72 minutes of play.
Kuznetsova registered her 13th win of the running WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) season by defeating the 19-year-old Romanian at Miami. The Russian blew away her opponent in the opening set of the game and then carried
on her winning momentum in the following set to conclude victory and advance to the third round of the tournament.
Despite delivering an ordinary first serve of 56 per cent accuracy in the game, Kuznetsova overwhelmed her opponent completely. She collected just 57 per cent of total serve points and 58 per cent return points in the match but
the critical success factor was her ability to bag the break opportunities. The Russian crafted seven chances to break the opponent’s serve and she cashed in six of them to route Halep.
Kuznetsova had an inspiring start to the opening set, breaking the opponent in her every serve game and rocketing away to 5-0 lead. Although her first serve dropped drastically low to 32 per cent, the Russian gave no chance to
Halep to settle down in the opener and sealed the first set assertively at 6-0.
Halep posed some resistance in the next set and broke the Russian serve twice but her opponent back fired three serve breaks at her, pushing her out of the contest at 6-4. Kuznetsova will face the unseeded Chinese Shuai Peng in
the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open. Peng won her second round matchup against the 20th seed French Aravane Rezai in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4, to meet Kuznetsova in the next round.
In another match of the evening, the German wildcard, Sabine Lisicki won her encounter against the 18th seed Russian Nadia Petrova, after the Russian retired from the contest due to injury. The score board was settled
in favour of Lisicki at 4-6, 6-3, 3-1, when the unfortunate event happened and Petrova had to pull off the contest.
The world number 22 Petrova bagged the opening set convincingly at 6-4, while breaking her opponent three times and dropping her serve twice. Lisicki bounced back strongly in the next set, nailing two break points to the Russian
serve to reel off the second set 6-3. Signs of fatigue and discomfort were evident from Petrova in the later part of the second set and she dropped her serve in the third set before calling off the match at 1-3.
Lisicki will take on the former world number one Maria Sharapova of Russia in the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open. The Russian ousted the Croatian wildcard, Petra Martic in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2, in the second round of
the tournament.
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