Azarenka advances, Kvitova out of China Open
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E-mail Xinhua, October 2, 2012
World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and No. 2 Maria Sharapova from Russia both reached second round at the China Open, taking different paths on Monday.
Azarenka, who claimed her maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open this season, dropped her first service game but answered with a 12-game winning streak to sweep past Frenchwoman Alize Cornet 6-1, 6-0 while Sharapova had to work hard to dig out a 7-5, 7-5 win against Simona Halep of Romania.
"Certainly the scoreline was quite difficult, but I was up in those two sets," said Sharapova, whose best result here is the semifinalist in 2004.
The Russian will play against Sorana Cirstea, another Romanian who defeated Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson 6-2, 6-3, while Azarenka, who withdrew from her third round match due to foot injury here last year, takes on German Sabine Lisicki in the second round. The German overcame a second set slump to beat Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
In an earlier match, world No. 5 Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic became the first high-profile casualty at the WTA Premier Mandatory event when she was upset by the 48th-ranked Carla Suarez Navarro from Spain.
Kvitova, last year's Wimbledon winner, never looked comfortable throughout the match against the 48th-ranked Navarro and just battled for one hour, slipping at 6-3, 6-2.
The 22-year-old dropped serve five times in straight sets loss and only scored 43 points, compared to 64 from her opponent.
Home favorite Zheng Jie, ranked 27th in the world, was also upset by lower ranked Spaniard Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino.
The Spanish qualifier, who is currently 88th in the world, lost two service games but broke Zheng four times to take the opening set at 6-2.
The second set was much closer and Zheng showed her battling qualities upon a cheering home crowd. However, Zheng had her comeback cut short and finally lost 6-4 to Arruabarrena-Vecino, nine years her junior.
"I did not play against her before. Even we don't practice with each other. I can only view her through match video and her ranking is improving pretty fast this season," said Zheng. "For the main draw matches, every single player have the potential to win, no matter coming from the qualification matches or not."
Elsewhere, there were wins for former China Open winner Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic from Serbia and Chinese player Peng Shuai.
It was a bad day for the seeds on men's part. Fourth seeded Marin Cilic won the first set but lost his momentum in the remaining match while eighth-seeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco lost to American Sam Querrey in the opening round.
"I would say just I wasn't serving consistently. When I had the break up in all three sets I would lose my serve, especially there in the third set," said the Croat, who lost the match at 3-6, 7-6, 6-4.
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