HOBART – French top seed Marion Bartoli dropped only one game in dumping former world number one Dinara Safina out of the Hobart International on Monday. Bartoli was in commanding form to put out the 2009 Australian Open runner-up, 6-0, 6-1 in one hour and 31 minutes in a night match. “She (Safina) was a very tough opponent tonight. If you look at the rallies we played I think it was a really great match,” the world number 16 said. “Some days we are really tight and the result goes my way. The score could have much been much tougher and much tighter. “I think the crowd really enjoyed match. Both of us put on a great show and it was a great atmosphere.” Two of the top three seeds were defeated in the first round, with second seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova retiring with a leg injury against American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Bulgarian third seed Tsvetana Pironkova falling to Peng Shuai of China.
KOHLSCHREIBER ADVANCES TO SECOND ROUND: Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber overcame a slow start to advance to the second round of the Auckland Classic with a 2-6 6-3 6-1 victory over Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq. The 2008 champion was the only seeded player to appear in the singles on Monday, and it looked like he may be on an early flight to the practice courts in Melbourne for next week’s Australian Open after the 66th-ranked Berlocq won the first set.
Kohlschreiber got back into the match early in the second with a service break to send it into a decider and then ran away with the third despite a brief wobble in the final game when Berlocq held a break point at 30-40. Spain’s Tommy Robredo, who made the final on the central Auckland courts in 2007, was forced into a unexpected battle against New Zealand wildcard Michael Venus in an earlier match. The 23-year-old Venus, who is ranked 330th in the world, delighted the home crowd by taking the first set in a tiebreak, but after the former world number five took the second with the only break of the set it was one way traffic in the third. Venus won just five points in the third set and Robredo won the match 6-7 6-3 6-0 in just under 96 minutes.
