Second seed Jelena Jankovic made a ruthless start at the China
Open WTA tournament on Thursday as she eased past Virginia Ruano
Pascual from Spain 6-0, 6-0 in the second round here at the Beijing
Tennis Centre.
The burgeoning Serb, who became the highest ranked seed after
Russian world number two Svetlana Kuznetsova announced withdrawal
one day earlier, will in the quarterfinals meet Akiko Morigami
whowon an all-Japanese clash beating Aiko Nakamura 7-5, 6-3.
The world number three has enjoyed a magnificent season to date,
securing four titles, including the Tier I events in Charleston and
Rome, and rising to a career-high ranking of No. 3.
In her previous appearance at the US$600,000 tournament,
Jankovic made a run all the way to the semifinals.
But the most attention was still on the American comeback mum
Lindsay Davenport, who continued the stunning winning streak with a
convincing 7-5, 6-3 victory over eighth seeded Greek Eleni
Daniilidou.
The former world number one needed to show some grit, however,
coming back from 1-3 down in both sets to set up a last eight
meeting with Russia's fourth seed Elena Dementieva, a 6-2, 6-0
winner over Austrian Tamira Paszek.
One of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's all-time greats, Davenport
capped a stellar return to action last weekend, winning the
Commonwealth Bank Tennis Classic singles title in Bali. It is a
mere three months since she gave birth to her first child.
"She mixed it up a lot on me today," said Davenport, who is now
on a seven-match roll since the Bali return.
"I got off to a slow start but in the end I was able to make
fewer errors and force her to make errors that she wasn't making at
the beginning."
"I don't know why it's been going so well, it has felt easy but
I think that's more to do with the fact that it's been fun and I've
enjoyed it," added the 31-year-old, who have not played a single
event between last September and this August, let alone a singles
event until just last week.
World No. 15 Dementieva revenged her Wimbledon round of 32
defeat to Paszek as she has produced some impressive groundstrokes
to break the Austrian six times out of the eleven
opportunities.
"I lost to her in the Wimbledon, so this time it gave me a
chance to prove myself," the 25-year-old Russian said. "Today I
play solid and aggressive game and I never gave her chance to play
long rallies."
"I have met her (Davenport) many times, she is a great player,"
Dementieva said of her next opponent Davenport, "it is not an easy
job playing against her even after she quit for quite a long time,
so I will play good tennis to get her running on court."
(Xinhua News Agency September 21,2007)