Former champion Maria Sharapova raised her game when it mattered to storm into the BNP Paribas Open quarter-finals with a 7-5 6-0 victory over Spaniard Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino.
Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka also cruised into the last eight, pounding Poland’s Urszula Radwanska 6-3 6-1 in a match lasting just under 90 minutes despite being hampered by a sore ankle.
Fifth seed Petra Kvitova advanced with a comfortable 6-2 6-3 win over fellow Czech Klara Zakopalova but third seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland was knocked out, losing 6-1 4-6 7-5 to 13th-seeded Russian Maria Kirilenko.
Russian world number three Sharapova won a tight opening set then swept through the second in only 22 minutes to reach the quarter-finals at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden for a third consecutive year.
The second seed will next meet Italy’s Sara Errani, a 6-3 6-2 winner against Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli earlier in the day, in a re-match of last year’s French Open final clinched by the Russian.
«I stepped up my game in the second set,» Sharapova, who was champion here in 2006 and a losing finalist last year, said courtside after wrapping up victory in one hour 18 minutes.
«The first set was so up and down I had to buckle down, stepping into the returns and getting in a few more first serves. It was a slow start. Just didn’t get a good rhythm on her game from the beginning.
«I think maybe I was going for the lines a little bit more than I had to, especially in the first few games when you don’t know too much about your opponent or haven’t played her.»
Source: Buenos Aires Herald