Serena & Safina Through In Beijing
05 October 2009
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Dinara Safina but her Pan Pacific disappointment behind her as she came through her second round match in Beijing yesterday.
Despite winning in straight sets the world number one, who has been suffering from bad for since the French Open, was made to fight for her win against Roberta Vinci as she was broke early by the Italian in both sets.
However the Russian dug in and managed to get the breaks back to seal the match 6-4 6-4.
But her world number one ranking, which she holds having never won a grand Slam title, is under threat from Serena Williams, who must go further than the Russian in the tournament to reclaim the top spot in the rankings.
And Williams made a difficult start to her challenge as she bagged an error riddled straight sets win over Kaia Kanepi.
It was the first time the American had played since her outburst at the U.S. Open in the semi final against Kim Clijsters and while the first set was tighter than she would have liked the second set was better from Williams.
She has also been struggling with injuries to her toe and to her knee since the U.S. Open and forced to miss last week's tournament in Tokyo.
Despite a string of unforced errors and double faults she wrapped up a 7-5 6-4 victory in just over eighty minutes.
It was a much better start to the tournament by the seeded women as fourth seed Elena Dementieva got back to winning ways with a convincing 6-4 6-0 victory over Anna-Lena.
Svetlana Kuznetsova put her Tokyo disappointment behind her as she saw of Zheng Jie 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 win Vera Zvonareva also winning 6-2 6-2.
But Caroline Wozniacki by unseeded Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-2) 6-0, the U.S. Open finalist had to retire from her match in Tokyo last week due to injury and she once again looked to be struggling.
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