Second seed Caroline Wozniacki overcame a slow start before powering past Flavia Pennetta to reach the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup.
The Dane won 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 against Pennetta on Thursday and will next face another Italian, the French Open winner Francesca Schiavone, who enjoyed a 6-4, 6-3 victory over former world's No 1 Dinara Safina.
The major casualty of Thursday's play was the fourth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva, who lost 7-6, 6-4 to China's Zheng Jie.
The weather turned cool for the evening session after a brief rain delay, but it did not stop Wozniacki from notching her fourth win in as many matches against Pennetta.
In the top half of the draw, Kim Clijsters breezed into the last eight with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Kaia Kanepi. Clijsters, who won the title in Cincinnati last week, was coming off a tougher second-round meeting with American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, which the Belgian won in three sets.
"I was playing an opponent who could not miss a shot, while today Kanepi was missing a lot, especially since her strengths are usually her serve and her backhand," Clijsters said. "I really felt that I had opportunities once I was in a rally, and she was either going to make a mistake or I could really try to make her move. Clijsters will face Vera Zvonareva in the last eight, after the eighth seed from Russia saw off Agnes Szavay of Hungary 6-3, 6-3.
Svetlana Kuznetsova had a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, turning around the match after getting thrashed in the second set. So what did she do during the break?
"I take a vodka shot, no?" Kuznetsova said with a laugh. "No, nothing like that. ... I just go to the locker room, change all my clothes, eat a banana and I go back. It's very simple. It was 6-1, but almost every game was deuce, so it was pretty hard. I took a break and it worked." The win put the 11th-seeded Kuznetsova into a quarter-final against Zheng yesterday.
In other matches, 10th-seeded Victoria Azarenka beat ninth-seeded Li Na of China 6-3, 6-3, and the 17th seed Marion Bartoli of France ousted the Czech qualifier Iveta Benesova 6-0, 6-1. Benesova was coming off a surprise win over top-seeded Jelena Jankovic. Azarenka and Bartoli were due to face off in the quarter-finals.
drive from www.independent.co.uk
<< Turn left at the horn: 'Rhino City' revealedGod bless deep fried America >>
No comments yet, be the first!