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Sharapova sails at Stuttgart event

Enters quaterfinal with a convincing victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Stuttgart : Maria Sharapova reached the last eight of the Stuttgart WTA tournament on Thursday with a convincing 6-4, 6-3 win over fellow-Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. It was in stark contrast to her struggles of the previous day when she needed three tie-breaks and almost three and a half hours to defeat Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic in a first round tie.

Seeded sixth this year, Sharapova is aiming for a third straight title on the red clay of Stuttgart as the preparations for the French Open get fully underway. The fourtime Grand Slam champion looked solid enough on serve, with just five double-faults to eight by her opponent and she had Pavlyuchenkova under constant pressure with her booming returns.

Her opponent in the quarterfinals will be Polish top seed Agnieszka Radwanska who proved too good for Italan doubles specialist Roberta Vinci, winning 6-3, 6-2.The Polish World No.3 had little difficulty in wrapping up the match in 1 hour 19 minutes.

Earlier, Ana Ivanovic defeated Sabine Lisicki 6-1, 6-3 to send the Wimbledon finalist out in the first round. Ivanovic, the World No.12, needed just one hour to beat the 24-year-old Berliner. Italy’s Flavia Pennetta fired 10 aces to none in her 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 win over wild card Andrea Petkovic

( Source : agencies )
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