Oct. 21: Kazakh qualifier Zarina Diyas defeated top-seed Jelena Jankovic 6-1, 6-2 on Thursday in the second round of the Kremlin Cup.
The 268th-ranked Diyas, who celebrated her 17th birthday on Monday, led 5-0 in the first set when Jankovic, 2008 champion here, called for a doctor and had her blood pressure checked. Jankovic, who has qualified for next week’s WTA championships, managed to break back early in the second set but Diyas then broke the Serb two times.
“I had nothing to lose,” Diyas said. “I just relaxed and played my best tennis.” Diyas also reached the quarterfinals of a WTA event in Prague last year.
In Moscow, she will face sixth-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia, who routed Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-0, 6-0. Vera Dushevina advanced to the quarterfinals with 6-4, 6-2 win over her fellow Russian Elena Vesnina. In the men’s second round, Horacio Zebalos of Argentina beat Romanian qualifier Victor Crivoi 7-5, 7-6 (1), while Alexandr Dolgopolov upset his fellow Ukrainian, seventh-seeded Sergiy Stakhovsky, 6-2, 7-6 (4).
Meanwhile, the Indo-Pak combo of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi advanced to the men’s doubles quarterfinals beating Leos Friedl of Czech Republic and Romanian Victor Hanescu 6-1, 3-6, 10-8 in a 76-minute gruelling battle.