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| April 07, 2007 | Saturday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428 |
Petrova breezes into last eight
AMELIA ISLAND (Florida), April 6: Top seed Nadia Petrova made short work of China's Zheng Jie with a 6-2, 6-3 victory to move into the quarter-finals of the Amelia Island championship on Thursday.
Also advancing to the last eight were No 2 seed Jelena Jankovic with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Alona Bondarenko (16), No 5 seed Dinara Safina who bested Katarina Srebotnik (11) 6-3, 6-1 and No 6 seed Ana Ivanovic, who beat Nathalie Dechy 6-1, 6-1.
Defending champion Petrova closed out her match in style, opening the final game with three of her seven aces in the match.
She narrowly missed making it four in a row, but then claimed victory when Zheng punched a backhand into the net.
Petrova will meet Safina in the quarter-finals on Friday, an opponent she beat two weeks ago at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
Jankovic was the quickest finisher on Thursday, taking just 27 minutes per set in her win over Bondarenko.
Jankovic will meet Ivanovic in the quarter-finals.
Also advancing were Tatiana Golovin, who posted a 6-2, 6-1 win over Samantha Stosur, and unseeded Venus Williams who beat Meilen Tu 6-2, 7-5.
Thursday’s results (prefix number denotes seeding):
Third round: Venus Williams (US) beat Meilen Tu (US) 6-2, 7-5; 8-Tatiana Golovin (France) beat 12-Samantha Stosur (Australia) 6-2, 6-1; 6-Ana Ivanovic (Serbia and Montenegro) beat Nathalie Dechy
(France) 6-1, 6-1; 2-Jelena Jankovic (Serbia and Montenegro) beat 16-Alona Bondarenko (Ukraine) 6-2, 6-0; 1-Nadia Petrova (Russia) beat 15-Zheng Jie (China) 6-2, 6-3; 13-Sybille Bammer (Austria) beat Karolina Sprem (Croatia) 6-2, 6-3; 5-Dinara Safina (Russia) beat 11-Katarina Srebotnik (Slovenia) 6-3, 6-1.—Reuters
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