MOSCOW, January 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova struggled to win her third-round match (7:6, 6:4) against Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Saturday.
The 23-year-old Russian, the 2004 U.S. Open champion, made 68 unforced errors, nearly double that of her opponent, as she fought her way into the fourth round of the grand slam tournament setting up an encounter with China's Jie Zheng seeded 22.
The eighth seed from St. Petersburg made an excellent start taking the first three games in a row before errors started to slip into her game and she was forced to use all her serve and volley tactics to overcome Bondarenko.
It was a bad day for the Bondarenko sisters with younger sister Kateryna being dumped in straight sets (6:2, 6:2) by Zheng.
