Indian Wells tennis: Jelena Jankovic, Kim Clijsters advance

Former champions Jelena Jankovic and Kim Clijsters cruised into the third round by posting straight-set victories at the WTA and ATP Masters 1000 event.

World No. 2 Clijsters, who won in 2005 and 2003, swept past Russian Alla Kudryavtseva with a dominating 6-2, 6-0 victory in the second round of the hardcourt tournament.

Defending champion Jankovic also showed plenty of firepower, crushing Coco Vandeweghe of the United States in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.

"I was happy to be playing out on centre court," Clijsters said. "For a first match, I'm at a stage now where I haven't played for a while, and when I was playing, my last few tournaments were indoors.

"So I kind of just have to get back into playing outdoors again and big arenas, and just get a feel for it all over again."

There were three former women's champions in action Friday, including Serbia's Ana Ivanovic who defeated Japan's Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-4, 6-2 in Friday's evening session. Ivanovic won here three years ago.

The women's draw also includes world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark who lost in the final last year to Jankovic 6-2, 6-4.

Second seed Clijsters needed just 52 minutes to beat Kudryavtseva and advance to play Sara Errani. Italy's Errani defeated Jarmila Groth 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.

Belgium's Clijsters clinched her match when the Russian's forehand return sailed wide left.

Clijsters could surpass Wozniacki with a strong performance in Indian Wells. Clijsters was ranked 133rd in the world when she won in 2005.

She hit three aces, won six of nine break-point chances and won 65 percent of the total points against Kudryavtseva. Clijsters won the second set in a blistering 21 minutes.

Jankovic began her title defence in equally dominating fashion, hitting four aces and winning 80 percent (20 of 25) first-serve points.

She is trying to become the first woman since Martina Navratilova in 1990-91 to win back-to-back Indian Wells titles.

"The last couple of weeks I have been starting to feel confident in my game," Jankovic said.

"She made a lot of mistakes. I didn't really know what to expect because I only played her once before at the US Open. But I knew she had a big serve."

Jankovic moves on to the third round where she will play Julia Goerges of Germany who beat Austrian Sybille Bammer 6-1, 6-3 on Friday.

In other key women's matches, reigning French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy dominated Czech Zuzana Ondraskova 6-2, 6-0 and 12th seeded Petra Kvitova lost 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 to fellow Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova.

Wozniacki, two-time Indian Wells champ Daniela Hantuchova and former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova of Russia play their first matches on Saturday.

In the men's draw, Milos Raonic of Canada hammered 10 aces and used his thundering forehand to overpower Turkey's Marsel Ilhan 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) in his opening match.

"I feel good. I feel like I played a lot better today," Raonic said. "My goal is to keep getting better and improving."

Raonic unleashed a 148-mph (238-kmh) ace in the second game of the second set against Ilhan in front of a crowd of 5,000 on an outer court.

He also had 140-mph and 138-mph serves in the final game of the first set but said he wasn't entirely happy with the way he was serving Friday.

"I didn't feel like I served all that well today," he said. "I have been working on improving my second serve."

Raonic hit one second serve early in the match that kicked up so high Ilhan had to use an overhead smash to get it back.

Raonic advances to the second round, where he will face American Mardy Fish, whom Raonic beat last month in the ATP Memphis semi-finals before going on to lose to Andy Roddick in the final.

"I look forward to it," Raonic said of meeting Fish again. "I feel like I am playing well from the back. If I keep this up good things will come."

In other men's matches, Igor Andreev of Russia defeated Japan's Kei Nishikori 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4, Australia's Bernard Tomic outlasted Rohan Bopannna 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 and Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun defeated Australian Lleyton Hewitt 6-2, 6-3.

The men's draw heats up Saturday with world No. 1 Rafael Nadal of Spain facing South Africa's Rick De Voest and defending champion Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia taking on Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro in the second round.

Sania Mirza suffers crushing defeat to Jankovic in Doha

It was always going to be a tough match for Indian tennis star Sania Mirza against 5th Jelena Jankovic, but she would have definitely hoped to put on a better showing as she was soundly hammered 6-0, 6-1 in the second round of the Qatar Ladies Open in Doha.

Sania’s poor serving in the second set of her first round encounter yesterday seemed to spill over into today as she managed to land only 26% of her first serves in the opening set. While she did get away with it against her young, inexperienced opponent yesterday, Jankovic proved to be a vastly different kettle of fish and did not let the opportunity go by winning 13 of 19 points on the Mirza serve to break thrice and win the first set to love in just 28 minutes.

The second set started off similar to the first with Mirza being broken in her first service game and with her down 0-3 15-40, a double-bagel scoreline looked on the cards. Fortunately for the Indian, she did manage to win four consecutive points to avoid the embarrassment, although that mattered little as she was broken in her next service game as well to allow Jankovic to serve for the match. The former world no.1 duly completed the assignment at hand, wrapping up the win in just over an hour.

Jankovic will now play Klara Zakopalova in the quarterfinals. Zakopalova scored an upset 6-2, 6-1 win over Australian Open finalist, Li Na.

Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Elena Vesnina, with whom she reached the quarterfinals in Dubai last week, will open their campaign later tonight against the Spanish-Romanian pair of Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Monica Niculescu.

Tennis Kleybanova topples tennis top-seed Jankovic

Russian Alisa Kleybanova ousted top-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic 7-5, 6-2 Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals of the WTA San Diego Open.

Jankovic, playing for the first time since injuring her left ankle a fortnight ago at the Slovenian Open, appeared ready to make quick work of Kleybanova when she broke the Russian's serve in the first and third games of the opening set, then held for a 4-0 lead.

But Kleybanova responded, breaking back to level the set at 5-5 and going on to pocket the first set when Jankovic knocked a backhand into the net.

Kleybanova then raced to a 4-0 lead in the second frame and Jankovic, who enjoyed a first-round bye, endured her first opening-match defeat since January.

At number two in the world, Jankovic became the highest ranked player beaten by Kleybanova, who now has four career victories against top five players.

Second-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur made it safely into the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over US teenager Melanie Oudin.

Stosur, the French Open runner-up, used her powerful serve to control Oudin and broke the American late in each set to notch the victory.

"I felt like at the start I wasn't timing the ball as well as I wanted to," Stosur said. "But as the match went on, I felt like I played better and better. I dictated and thought I served well. Overall, I was very happy."

Polish fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska and Israeli seventh seed Shahar Peer each advanced to the quarters with straight-set triumphs.

Peer defeated Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova 7-5, 6-4 to book a date in the final eight against Radwanska, who downed former world number one Dinara Safina of Russia 6-1, 6-3.

Jankovic downs compatriot Ivanovic

Jelena Jankovic said she took little notice of compatriot Ana Ivanovic across the net Wednesday, emerging with a scratchy 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win in a Serbian struggle to reach the third round of the Madrid Masters.

"I treated it as just another match," said the seventh seed who played the Rome final last weekend. "Over the years you play so many matches and go through so many things.

"Maybe at the start of our careers it was important, Now you just want to play your tennis. You try your best and try to win."

2008 Roland Garros champion Ivanovic led the series 6-2 going into the contest after making a move back to form last week in Rome with a semi-final which improved her ranking to 42nd on the WTA.

But the one-time number one was bedevilled on serve with a dozen double-faults which did not help her cause in the struggle lasting just over an hour and three-quarters.

Jankovic probably didn't even notice. "It doesn't matter if it's a Serb or anyone else. I just played my tennis.

"It was not my best and I didn't expect to play so great after a long week in Rome. But it's the first match in Madrid with the altitude. I got through it and I get to play again tomorrow."

Ivanovic faced 20 break points in the battle, losing 11 while Jankovic was broken eight times in the sloppy victory showing.

In men's ATP play, Croatian eighth seed Marin Cilic notched up a 6-3, 6-0 defeat of Argentine Edoardo Schwank in the second round while number 12 Frenchman Gael Monfils got a break as German Philipp Petzschner quit at 1-1 with a leg injury after just 11 minutes.

Argentine Juan Monaco put out Brazil's 16th seed Thomaz Bellucci 6-2, 6-2.

Making later starts were second seed Nadal, facing Oleg Dolgopolov of the Ukraine, third-seeded Scot Andy Murray and French Open finalist Robin Soderling of Sweden.

Jankovic sees to reclaim World no.1 Ranking

Jankovic sees Dubai as first step to reclaim World no.1 Ranking.

Jelena Jankovic is ready to continue her quest to recapture the number one ranking she held in 2008 and 2009 as she competes next week in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships.

Universally acknowledged as one of the WTA Tour's most charismatic players, the Serb recovered from a difficult start to the 2009 season to win titles in Marbella and Cincinnati and qualify for the year-end Sony Ericsson Championships. She finished in the top 10 for the third straight year and earned her first victory over a reigning world number one when she defeated Dinara Safina in the Cincinnati final.

She also finished as runner-up in Tokyo where she was forced to retire against Maria Sharapova with a wrist injury, she reached the semi-finals of the Paris Indoor event, and she was a quarter-finalist no less than six times, in Stuttgart, Rome, Madrid, Stanford, Toronto and Moscow.

Jankovic is one of only a handful of players who knows what it is like to be ranked as the very best player in the world, and it is something she wants to experience again.

"You go on the court and want to play as the number one player in the world and you don't feel any pressure, because once you become the number one player, you get that monkey off your back," she said.

"If you are number two or three in the world you think, ‘Maybe I will finish my career there and never get to the top position', or that I've been working so hard and got to this position and later I'm defending so many points and maybe I'll never get so close again.

"You put so much pressure on yourself, but once you get there and touch that spot you don't have anything further to lose. It is a dream come true, and then you can go out there and enjoy your tennis. Still, you know that many other players are coming up and want to beat you with nothing to lose when they are playing against you, so you have to work much, much harder on the court, off the court."

With so much success in regular Tour events, the only thing that prevented Jankovic challenging strongly to regain the number one ranking was her failure to advance to the later stages of the four Grand Slams. However, despite that disappointment she played a pivotal role in Serbia qualifying for the first time to the Fed Cup elite World Group, winning matches against Japan and Spain.

Now, after a respectable start to the season that has seen her continue her Fed Cup success with victories over Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alisa Kleybanova, she is thrilled to return to one of her favourite venues.

Jankovic reached the final on her Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships debut in 2005 and the semi-finals in 2007 and 2008. Her loss in 2007, after she had beaten Martina Hingis, was especially disappointing because she had to retire against Amelie Mauresmo after injuring her ankle and collapsing on the court. Now, she is looking forward to making up for one of her more disappointing visits here as she fell in the third round last year to Kaia Kanepi.

"Jelena Jankovic is one of the greatest entertainers in the game, and her ability to always wear a smile while at the same time putting so much effort into her game has made her one of the most popular players on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour," said Colm McLoughlin, Managing Director of tournament owners and organisers Dubai Duty Free.

"She made her debut here in Dubai as long ago as 2003 when she won an event run by the International Tennis Federation, and many feel a similar success is overdue at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships."

Play at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships begins on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 with the WTA Tour event and continues with the ATP tournament from Monday, February 22nd - 27th.