Jelena Jankovic and Victoria Azarenka were the only Top 8 seeds not to have fallen in the first two rounds of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo and on Wednesday they went through to the quarterfinals. Maria Sharapova also advanced to the last eight.
The seventh-seeded Jankovic won her third-round match when Elena Vesnina retired with a left thigh injury while trailing 6-1 3-0. The eighth-seeded Azarenka beat Lucie Safarova 7-5 6-4 in the last match of the day.
The 2005 Toray Pan Pacific Open champion Sharapova once again played a three-setter against fellow Russian Alisa Kleybanova, fighting back from a first-set loss to win 2-6 6-2 6-2. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)
Maria’s not playing well at the moment (she’s tired, 4 matches in 4 days is too much for our girl already, actually it’s probably because of those dumb three setters). I still hope she can pull this off — for some reason I think she’ll find a way to win. It’ll be tough, but I say Maria in 3. Good luck, Maria.
P.S. Someone said the reason Maria looked tired today might be because she wanted to conserve energy for her next match. I hope that’s true, but our girl has never done that before does she? I mean, I think she does conserve energy at different points while playing a match but I don’t think she thinks ahead of matches in the future. Losing to Agnieszka would be embarrassing (I’d prefer her to get crushed by Jelena or something). I’m so nervous. 😛
Don’t worry about Maria Teerin. From what I’ve seen this week she looks to be playing very well in Tokyo. How was the serve against Benesova? She beat Radwanska in Toronto in straight sets when she wasn’t seving too well so I think she can get past her again. I believe in her 🙂 I think she could even beat JJ in the final 😛