Thu Aug 28 14:21:24 2008

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Venus, Safina charge into third round at U.S. Open

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Flushing Meadows, NY (Sports Network) - Two-time champion Venus Williams and Olympic silver medalist Dinara Safina were easy second-round winners Thursday at the U.S. Open.

The seventh-seeded Williams waltzed past 32-year-old Rossana De Los Rios of Paraguay 6-0, 6-3 on Day 4 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. De Los Rios, the mother of an 11-year-old daughter, never enjoyed even one break-point chance en route to the predictable defeat.

Williams moved on in one hour after converting on a fifth match point and will face 27th-seeded Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko in a third-rounder this weekend. Bondarenko blitzed German Sabine Lisicki 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 to advance.

Venus is a seven-time major champion, including back-to-back U.S. Open titles in 2000 and 2001. She also had runner-up finishes here in 1997 and 2002.

The 28-year-old Venus captured a second straight, and fifth overall, Wimbledon title last month.

A sixth-seeded Safina blew past Italian Roberta Vinci 6-4, 6-3. The Russian is arguably the hottest player in women's tennis, having reached the final in six of her last seven tournaments and winning three titles. She was the French Open runner-up to Serbian Ana Ivanovic back in June and the runner-up to fellow Russian Elena Dementieva at the Beijing Games earlier this month.

Up next for the surging Safina will be Swiss Timea Bacsinszky, who moved on by dousing Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan 6-3, 6-2.

Another top-10 victor was Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, as the No. 9 seed got past Colombian Mariana Duque Marino 6-0, 7-6 (7-3).

Seventeenth-seeded Frenchwoman Alize Cornet topped American Bethanie Mattek 7-6 (7-5), 6-1, while 18th-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova drubbed Romanian Ioana Raluca Olaru 6-2, 6-2 and 19th-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova pasted Taipei's Su-Wei Hsieh 6-4, 6-2.

An upset came when France's Severine Bremond bounced 20th-seeded Czech Nicole Vaidisova 7-5, 6-3.