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Mauresmo, Davenport lead Day-3 winners in Dubai |
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2/23/2006 7:41:49 AM |
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 Dubai, United Arab Emirates (Sports Network) - Top seeds Amelie Mauresmo of France and Lindsay Davenport of the United States were among the eight second- round winners Wednesday at the $1 million Dubai Duty Free Women's Open.
The red-hot Mauresmo won her 16th straight match by whipping Slovak Henrieta Nagyova 6-3, 6-1 at Dubai Tennis Stadium.
The world No. 2 Mauresmo is fresh off her back-to-back titles in Paris and Antwerp and captured the Australian Open last month. The French stalwart topped top-ranked Kim Clijsters in last week's Diamond Games finale and hasn't lost since dropping her first match of 2006 early last month.
Up next for the 2002 Dubai titlist Mauresmo will be 2004 U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, who upended eighth-seeded Slovak Daniela Hantuchova 3-6, 6-1, 7-5. Kuznetsova was the 2004 runner-up in Dubai.
The defending Dubai champion Davenport double-bageled helpless Russian Elena Likhovtseva 6-0, 6-0 on Day 3 and will face rising Russian Maria Kirilenko in Thursday's quarterfinals. The former world No. 1 Davenport defeated Serb Jelena Jankovic in last year's Dubai finale.
Davenport's victory on Wednesday marked the 700th of her solid career (700-181).
Other big-name winners were former No. 1s Maria Sharapova, Justine Henin- Hardenne and Martina Hingis. The third-seeded Sharapova downed fellow Russian Vera Dushevina 6-1, 6-0; the fourth-seeded Henin-Hardenne, of Belgium, handled the Ukraine's Kateryna Bondarenko 6-4, 7-5; and the unseeded Hingis, who captured the inaugural Dubai event in 2001, upended sixth-seeded Russian Anastasia Myskina 6-4, 6-3.
The wild card Hingis and Sharapova will meet here on Thursday, just three weeks after the "Swiss Miss" upset the tall Russian in a semifinal in Tokyo. Henin-Hardenne's round-of-eight opponent will be seventh-seeded Italian Francesca Schiavone. The French Open champion and Australian Open runner-up Henin-Hardenne captured Dubai back-to-back in 2003 and 2004.
Henin-Hardenne is seeing her first action since retiring against Mauresmo during their championship match showdown at last month's Aussie Open.
In other second-round action, Schiavone drubbed Tunisian Selima Sfar 6-2, 6-3 and Kirilenko dismissed Czech Lucie Safarova 6-4, 6-3.
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