SPORTS

Daniilidou stuns Bartoli

By Jeff Elliot
April 03, 2007 16:39 IST
Greece's Eleni Daniilidou caused the biggest upset on the opening day of the Amelia Island championship when she cruised to a 6-0 6-4 victory over French 10th seed Marion Bartoli on Monday.

The 24-year-old raced through the match in 71 minutes to set up a second-round encounter against either Aiko Nakamura of Japan or another Frenchwoman, Nathalie Dechy.

The only other seed to lose of the seven in action was number 14 Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain, who fell to a 7-6 6-2 defeat to Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia.

There were no such problems for the remainder of the seeds, with number 13 Sybille Bammer of Austria easing past Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn by a 6-3 6-1 margin and 17th ranked Martina Muller of Germany beating American Ashley Harkleroad 7-5 6-1.

They were joined by Zheng Jie of China, Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia and Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine, who all recorded straight sets victories.

Croatia's Karolina Sprem enjoyed a winning start to her claycourt season with a 6-4 7-6 victory over American Meghann Shaughnessy, advancing to meeting against seventh seeded Li Na of China.

The world 107 battled back from a 4-0 deficit in the second set tiebreak to seal victory in just under two hours.

A majority of the higher-ranked players will be in action on Tuesday, including top seed and defending champion Nadia Petrova of Russia, third seeded Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova and fifth seed Dinara Safina.

Jeff Elliot
Source: REUTERS
© Copyright 2024 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

NEXT ARTICLE

NewsBusinessMoviesSportsCricketGet AheadDiscussionLabsMyPageVideosCompany Email