Mauresmo, Wozniak, King advance to quarterfinals
MASON, Ohio -- Fifth-seeded Amelie Mauresmo and sixth-seeded Aleksandra Wozniak easily advanced to the quarterfinals of the $175,000 Cincinnati Women's Open with straight-set wins on Thursday.
Wozniak advanced by beating Julia Vakulenko 6-2, 6-3, before Mauresmo became the last quarterfinalist with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Yanina Wickmayer.
"As I told you after my first match, I'm just looking to find my rhythm, which I found tonight," said Mauresmo, who was ranked No. 1 on the WTA Tour in 2004 and 2006 and is playing her first tournament since Wimbledon while coming back from a thigh injury. "I was happy to not spend too much time on the court."
Wozniak broke Vakulenko's serve to clinch the first set and start a string of consecutive service breaks that reached five before the Canadian, the WTA Tour's 39th-ranked player, held to take a 3-2 lead in the second set. She added another break to take control before closing out the match with a serve to Vakulenko's backhand that the Ukrainian returned long.
Vakulenko, who committed 14 unforced errors in the first set and 27 in the match to Wozniak's 14, traced her problems in part to the fractured right wrist she suffered in January.
"My arm gets really tired, and I can't practice as much," she said.
Wozniak, who split her first two career matches with Vakulenko, believed her aggressiveness was the difference.
"I played some balls deep into the corners and down the middle, and she didn't have a chance to step up and play her game," Wozniak said.
Wozniak, who won the Tier II Stanford tournament championship in July, will meet unseeded Nathalie Dechy in one of Friday's quarterfinal matches of the Tier III Western and Southern Financial Group Women's Open. Dechy advanced late Wednesday with an upset of fourth-seeded Katarina Srebotnik.
The start of the match was delayed 30 minutes by rain.
Mauresmo's quarterfinals opponent will be Vania King, who earned her best finish of the year with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Jamea Jackson in a matchup of unseeded players.
Jackson lost all three of her service games in the first set against King, whose previous best finish of the year was reaching the round of 16 at the Tier III Istanbul event. Jackson advanced when top seed Marion Bartoli was forced to retire because of abdominal pain from their first-round match Tuesday. She rode a break to a 4-1 lead in the second set before King regrouped to win the last five games, capping her surge with an ace on match point.
"In the first set, she made a lot of unforced errors," King said. "I think we both were a little nervous. I don't think we both played our best. In the second set, she was more aggressive and played a lot of long points. When I was down 3-0 and 4-1, it was only one break, so I didn't panic, because I knew [with] one break, I'm back in it."
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
