Zvonareva reaches Indian Wells semis
Indian Wells, CA (Sports Network) – Olympic bronze medalist Vera Zvonareva was an easy quarterfinal winner Wednesday at the $4.5 million BNP Paribas Open.
The fourth-seeded Zvonareva zipped past ninth-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-2 in 1 hour, 34 minutes on the hardcourts at the beautiful Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Zvonareva cruised despite piling up 12 double faults on Day 8.
Zvonareva’s semifinal opponent will be top-seeded Russian Dinara Safina or eighth-seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, who will meet here on Wednesday night. Safina was this year’s Australian Open runner-up and last year’s French Open and Olympic runner-up.
The quarterfinals will conclude here on Thursday when fifth-seeded Serb Ana Ivanovic meets 23rd-seeded Austrian Sybille Bammer and seventh-seeded Pole Agnieszka Radwanska takes on unseeded rising Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. The reigning French Open champion Ivanovic beat Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in last year’s Indian Wells title bout.
The 2009 Indian Wells champion will collect $700,000.
03/18 16:09:20 ET