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Sania books meeting with Venus in Charleston

Sania books meeting with Venus in Charleston

By AFP

CHARLESTON: India's Sania Mirza booked a second-round clash with second-seeded Venus Williams Tuesday with a straight-sets victory in the one million-dollar Family Circle Cup. Sania Mirza beat Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-4 to line up the marquee meeting with Williams, who will be launching her campaign on Wednesday afternoon after enjoying a first-round bye. Top-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva, who rose to a career-high ranking of number three in the world last week, reached the third round with a dominant 6-0, 6-2 victory over American Julie Ditty. 'I don't feel any pressure being the number one seed here,' Dementieva said. 'Tonight was a good start to the tournament for me. I had never played Julie before so I really didn't want her to get into the match. It's easy to lose your concentration. I really stayed focused tonight.' Third-seeded Vera Zvonareva and number four Nadia Petrova, both of Russia, also reached the third round, as did sixth-seeded Marion Bartoli of France and seventh-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova. Zvonareva cruised past Paraguay's Rossana de los Rios 6-3, 6-2. 'I felt pretty good for my first match of the year on clay,' said Zvonareva, a finalist here last year. 'I didn't expect myself to play my best, and it was a bit of a struggle at times because of the wind, but it was pretty good.' Fourth-seeded Petrova beat Austrian Patricia Mayr 6-1, 2-6, 6-2, Bartoli defeated Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 6-1, 6-3 and Cibulkova downed Austrian Tamira Paszek 6-4, 6-0.