Williams sisters win to set up clash at Indian Wells
INDIAN WELLS, CA – MARCH 10: Serena Williams celebrates her victory over Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands during the BNP Paribas Open on March 10, 2018 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, California. Jeff Gross/Getty Images/AFP
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Serena Williams and sister Venus won at the BNP Paribas Open to set up a third-round clash in the desert tournament.
Serena got by No. 29 seed Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands 7-6 (5), 7-5 in the second round on Saturday in her return from a 14-month absence after giving birth to her first child. Venus preceded her younger sister on the stadium court and beat Sorana Cirstea of Romania 6-3, 6-4.
The sisters will resume their longtime rivalry on Monday. Serena leads Venus 17-11 all-time and has won eight of their last nine meetings, most recently the Australian Open final last year.
Wild card Danielle Collins defeated U.S. Open finalist Madison Keys 6-3, 7-6 (1) to continue a string of upsets.
Keys hasn’t made it past the fourth round at Indian Wells in eight tries. The No. 15 seed was mistake-prone throughout the second-round match, committing five unforced errors in the tiebreaker.
Collins, ranked 116th and making her first appearance in the main draw, is just starting her second year on the WTA Tour.
She joined American upset winners Sachia Vickery, who beat No. 3 seed Garbine Muguruza; 16-year-old wild card Amanda Anisimova, who beat No. 23 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova; and wild-card teenager Caroline Dolehide, a three-set winner over No. 30 Dominika Cibulkova on Friday.
In other matches Saturday, defending champion Elena Vesnina eliminated American CiCi Bellis 2-6, 6-1, 6-1; No. 4 seed Elina Svitolina beat Mona Barthel 6-4, 6-3; No. 12 Julia Georges defeated Natalia Vikhlyantseva 6-4, 6-1; No. 27 Carla Suarez Navarro beat Su-Wei Hsieh 6-4, 2-6, 6-3; and No. 26 Daria Gavrilova dismissed Yanina Wickmayer 7-6 (3), 6-2.
Two seeded players lost: No. 18 Magdalena Rybarikova and No. 28 Anett Kontaveit.
On the men’s side, fifth-seeded Dominic Thiem fired 10 aces to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece 6-2, 3-6, 6-3; No. 7 Kevin Anderson defeated Evgeny Donskoy 7-5, 6-4; and No. 12 Tomas Berdych rolled past German Maximilian Marterer 6-1, 6-4 in just over an hour.
No. 30 Pablo Cuevas beat Denis Shapovalov 7-6 (4), 6-3.
No. 16 Fabio Fognini was beaten by Jeremy Chardy 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4.
