ROME:
Women’s world number two Francesca Schiavone led a host of seeds in progressing at the Rome International.
The French Open champion had few problems in seeing off American qualifier Christina McHale 6-3, 6-1 to reach the third round. However, the upset of the day was caused by wildcard Italian Romina Oprandi, who knocked out Estonian 14th-seed Kaia Kanepi 7-5, 3-6, 6-1.
In the men’s competition 16th-seed Richard Gasquet was the first player through to the third round as he thrashed Russian qualifier Igor Andreev 6-1, 6-2. Spanish ninth-seed Nicolas Almagro also won comfortably in his first-round clash against wildcard Simone Bolelli, winning 6-0, 7-5.
In other matches Flavio Cipolla lost to Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic 6-2, 6-3 while Mario Cilic also reached the second round as he prevailed in the battle of big-serving Croatians with Ivo Karlovic retiring while trailing 6-4, 1-0.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2011.