Seed No.2 Marion Bartoli lost in the second round of the Kremlin Cup and now it’s certain that Samantha Stosur, top seed in Moscow, will be the first alternate at the WTA Championships in Istanbul. To get a chance to occupy the spot of the first alternate, Bartoli needed to reach at least the final in Moscow, but that proved to be a long shot as the Frenchwoman fell to Sofia Arvidsson right after her first-round bye, 6-3 6-0.
In the match of the two 28-year-olds, the 46th-ranked Arvidsson committed no double faults, while her opponent made 12, and had the first serve percentage of 80 to her opponent’s 53. Bartoli said she was tired and exhausted and the slow indoor court didn’t work in her advantage, perfectly suiting Arvidsson who is now 5-2 all-time against Bartoli.
In the Kremlin Cup quarterfinals, Arvidsson will face either seventh-seeded Maria Kirilenko, one of only two Russians left in the draw which originally featured seven players from that country, or Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)
