Wozniacki strolls into third round

Top seed registers straight-sets victory in Madrid Masters.

MADRID:

World number one Caroline Wozniacki sent out a warning to her rivals as the top-seed eased into the third round of the Madrid Open with a straight-sets victory over Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovsk.

Wozniacki, who has reached the final four times in her last five tournaments, recovered from a somewhat shaky start in the beginning of the match, to clinch a 6-4, 6-4 victory over her Serbian opponent.

Although, the top-seed found herself a break down to the aggressive groundstrokes of Jovanovsk, she quickly capitalised to get her rhythm back to remain on track at the Caja Magica.

Wozniacki now waits for the winner of the second-round clash between former world number one Dinara Safina and Germany’s Julia Goerges. Goerges also registered a surprise victory over Safina in the Stuttgart final last month.

Stosur thunders to win

Meanwhile, Australian Samantha Stosur also moved into the third round of the ATP-WTA Madrid Masters, defeating Daniela Hantuchova for the second time in a fortnight on red clay.

The fifth seed won 7-6 (7/1), 7-5 winner in a second round match which was almost interrupted by a huge thunderclap in the skies over the Caja Magica.

The noise caught Hantuchova off-guard, with the flinching Slovak asking to stop play.

But with Stosur closing in on victory, the match went ahead as per plan, with the French Open finalist advancing on her second match point in just under two hours of play moments later.

Stosur lifted her clay record in 2011 to 6-2 as she closes in on her career-best in Madrid.

“We always have tough matches,” said Stosur after claiming victory with 24 winners and 28 unforced errors. “We know each other’s game very well.”

Meanwhile, in other matches, American Bethanie Mattek-Sands needed just 71 minutes to overcome Vania King 6-0, 6-2, while sixteenth-seeded Petra Kvitova defeated South African Chanelle Scheepers in straight sets with a 6-3, 6-3 win.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2011.