Top seed Victoria Azarenka, who crushed Maria Sharapova in last year’s Indian Wells final, couldn’t find her rhythm in the beginning of her third-round meeting with Kirsten Flipkens, but in the end came out strong by taking all of her opponent’s serves in the third set to win 3-6 6-3 6-0. Her rival in the fourth round will be Urszula Radwanska, who earlier defeated Jamie Hampton 6-0 7-6(4).
Fourth seed Angelique Kerber beat seed No.30 Yanina Wickmayer 6-1 7-6(4), but only after recovering from 1-4 down in the second set, thanks to her coach’s reminder to focus on their pre-match strategy, by winning five of the next seven games and then the tiebreak. Garbine Muguruza, who swept past Magdalena Rybarikova 6-4 6-0, will be Kerber’s fourth-round opponent.
In other matches, seventh seed Samantha Stosur overcame seed No.32 Peng Shuai 6-3 3-6 6-2, seed No.10 Nadia Petrova brushed aside seed No.21 Julia Goerges 6-1 6-2, eighth seed Caroline Wozniacki crushed Elena Vesnina 6-2 6-1, while Mona Barthel eliminated Ana Ivanovic 6-1 3-6 6-0, after Ivanovic managed to take the second set by converting one of nine break points and saving all three of three Barthel’s chances to break.
Fourth round match-ups: Victoria Azarenka [1] vs. Urszula Radwanska, Nadia Petrova [10] vs. Caroline Wozniacki [8], Angelique Kerber [4] vs. Garbine Muguruza, Mona Barthel [24] vs. Samantha Stosur [7], Petra Kvitova [5] vs. Klara Zakopalova [19], Maria Kirilenko [13] vs. Agnieszka Radwanska [3], Sara Errani [6] vs. Marion Bartoli [9] and Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino vs. Maria Sharapova [2]. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)
wait, i think you are going a alittle fast! arent these 4th round match-ups?
Turkish Mommy, every time I wanted to write the 4th round I wrote QF :/ I should slow down my life 🙂