Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova are among a host of big names to reach the third round of the U.S. Open.
Top seed Azarenka demolished Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium 6-2, 6-2 on Wednesday and will now face 28th seed Jie Zheng of China in the third round.
Sharapova, the world No. 3, dispensed with Spain’s Lourdes Dominguez Lino in less than hour, the Spanish player failing to land a single winner as she went down 6-0, 6-1.
Elsewhere in the women’s second round matches, fifth seed Petra Kvitova beat Alize Cornet 6-4, 6-3, while seventh seed Samantha Stosur knocked out Edina Gallovits-Hall 6-3, 6-0 and ninth seed Li Na booked her place in the third round with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Casey Dellacqua.
The highest-ranked seed to fall in either singles’ draw Wednesday was 17th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who suffered a surprise defeat to French doubles specialist Kristina Mladenovic, the world No. 150, going down 6-1, 6-2.
Mladenovic now faces an uphill task against fellow French player and 11th seed Marion Bartoli in the third round.
In the first of the men’s second round matches, third seed and Olympic champion Andy Murray had little trouble against Croatian world No. 118 Ivan Dodig, winning 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 to set up a match against one of a pair of Spaniards, either 30th seed Feliciano Lopez or world No. 37 Pablo Andujar.
The remaining men’s first round ties saw fourth seed David Ferrer forced to battle in a straight-sets win over South Africa’s Ken Anderson, eventually progressing 6-4, 6-2, 7-6(3), while seventh seed Juan Martin del Potro knocked out Florent Serra 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-4.
Janko Tipsarevic, the eighth seed, had to dig deep to avoid a major upset against world No. 129 Guillaume Rufin, who he eventually beat 4-6, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 in a five-set thriller.
Russian No. 1 Mikhail Youzhny, seeded 28th, was not so lucky as his U.S. Open ended in the first-round against Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, who won 2-6, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(6), 7-6(6).
There were also upsets for 21st seed Tommy Haas, who went down to a 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 defeat against Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis, and 29th seed Viktor Troicki, defeated 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 by German world No. 97 Cedrik-Marcel Stebe.
