Russian tennis stars Nadia Petrova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Vera Zvonareva are through to the third round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Petrova defeated Australia's Alicia Molik 6-4, 6-1 and Pavlyuchenkova beat Germany's Kristina Barrois 6-2, 6-2 in the second round on Thursday. Zvonareva knocked out Serbia's Bojana Jovanovski 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 in just 108 minutes.
In the third round Pavlyuchenkova will face Czech's Iveta Benesova, who beat Russia's Maria Kirilenko in the second round.
Zvonareva will take on Klara Zakopalova from the Czech Republic and Petrova will play the winner of a forthcoming match between Ukraine's Lesya Tsurenko and Russia's Ekaterina Makarova.
Kirilenko, Alisa Kleybanova and Anna Chakvetadze were knocked out of the tournament in the second round. Kirilenko lost 3-6, 1-6 in 79 minutes to Czech's Iveta Benesova, Kleybanova lost 4-6, 6-7 to Rumania's Simona Halep and Chakvetadze lost 3-6, 4-6 to Czech 25th seed Petra Kvitova.
MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti)
