Madrid, Spain (SportsNetwork.com) - Australian Open champion Li Na and former Wimbledon runner-up Agnieszka Radwanska highlighted Monday's first- round winners at the $4.2 million Madrid Open.
The second-seeded Chinese stalwart Li topped Belgian Kirsten Flipkens 6-1, 7-6 (9-7), while the third-seeded Polish star Radwanska handled Canadian Eugenie Bouchard 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 on the red clay at the Magic Box.
In other action involving top-10 seeds, No. 4 Romanian Simona Halep grounded German qualifier Julia Goerges 6-2, 6-0. No. 6 former top-ranked star Jelena Jankovic bested Ukrainian Elina Svitolina 6-4, 6-3, and former U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur upset No. 9 Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 6-4, 6-0. Cibulkova was January's Aussie Open runner-up to Li.
Meanwhile, 13th-seeded former world No. 1 Danish star and 2009 Madrid runner- up Caroline Wozniacki routed Russian Ekaterina Makarova 6-2, 6-2, 14th-seeded Spanish favorite Carla Suarez Navarro bested Austrian Yvonne Meusburger 7-6 (8-6), 6-4, and 15th-seeded 2013 Wimbledon runner-up Sabine Lisicki of Germany outlasted Czech qualifier Karolina Pliskova 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3. The hot Suarez Navarro is fresh off her first-ever WTA title in Portugal last week.
Also on Day 3, Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova snuck past wild card and recent Marrakech champion Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor, of Spain, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, Romanian wild card Irina-Camelia Begu got past Chinese Zhang Shuai 6-4, 7-5, and last week's Portugal Open runner-up and two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova edged out France's Alize Cornet 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.
In some second-round action on Tuesday, the world No. 2 Li will face fellow Chinese Zheng Jie and eighth-seeded former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova will take on American Christina McHale. Sharapova was last year's runner-up to Serena Williams in Madrid and at the French Open.
