MONTREAL, Canada — Reigning US Open champion Kim Clijsters cruised into the quarter-finals of the two million-dollar WTA Montreal Cup on Thursday by defeating Estonia's Kaia Kanepi 6-2, 6-1.
The Belgian fifth seed, who won her third title of the year last week at Cincinnati, took just 55 minutes to reach a quarter-final Friday against Russian eighth seed Vera Zvonareva, who beat Hungary's Agnes Szavay 6-3, 6-3.
Clijsters, who rose to fourth in the WTA rankings released Monday, ended a two-year layoff to start a family last year at Cincinnati and went on to win her second Grand Slam title at the US Open, which she also won in 2005.
Clijsters seeks a 39th career singles crown at the final major hardcourt tuneup for this year's US Open and bids for her fourth title of 2010, having already won at Brisbane and Miami in addition to last week.
That's more like it!. Much more straight forward, routine match. Granted the other player didn't seem to be playing at her best, but still all credit to Kim.
She seemed much sharper today, her ground strokes were sharp, her forehands and backhands as well. The serve was slightly better, but still could use improvement.
She seems to be having issues with her second serve a lot.
Interestingly in the post-match interview she mentioned that she's currently in the process of trying to change her service motion to a more abbreviated one.
But ended up going back to her old one in the end. Guess we'll see how that effects her at the U.S. Open.
Very solid win, her next match could be a toughie. Zvonareva beat her in the quarters of Wimbledon this year so she'll have her work cut out for her.
But if she starts as well as she did today she should have no problems moving on to the semis.
Well done Kim, keep it up! (I'm pretty sure all of Montreal is rooting for you ).
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