Rome, May 14 (IANS) Top seed Li Na beat Casey Dellacqua in straight sets in the second round of Internazionali BNL d’Italia tournament Tuesday to record the 500th professional match win of her career.
The Chinese player compiled an 84 percent first serve percentage and converted five of seven break points to brush aside the Australian qualifier 6-1, 6-4 in one hour and 17 minutes, Xinhua reported.
Li is the 12th active player to reach 500 career match wins following in the steps of Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Jelena Jankovic, Flavia Pennetta, Tamarine Tanasugarn, Francesca Schiavone, Nadia Petrova, Maria Sharapova, Daniela Hantuchova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Stephanie Foretz Gacon.
No. 5 seed Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic was upset by China’s Zhang Shuai 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
No. 7 seed Angelique Kerber also stopped before the third round after losing to Czech qualifier Petra Cetkovska 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Dominika Cibulkova, the ninth seed, crashed out too as she lost to wild-card Camila Giorgi 6-4, 7-6 (7-2).
The other seeds in first round action both won, with No. 10 seed Errani beating South African qualifier Chanelle Scheepers, 7-5, 6-3, and No.13 seed Carla Suarez Navarro beating German qualifier Mona Barthel, 6-2, 6-2. Suarez Navarro’s win over Barthel was her WTA-leading 29th match win of the year.
Li Na reaches 500th career win added by Indian newspaper Sydney on
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