Sharapova Begins March to No. 1 with Win at WTA Los Angeles

Maria Sharapova is for all intents and purposes guaranteed the No. 1 ranking either this week or next, and the top-seeded Russian showed she prefers the former with an error-filled 7-6(7), 6-2 win Tuesday over countrywoman and good friend Maria Kirilenko in her opening-round match at the WTA stop in Los Angeles.

"I was up 0-40 on her serve at 6-5 and she came up with some good shots," said Sharapova on edging out the first-set breaker. "The first set really could have gone anywhere, so I was really happy to win it...I've known her for such a long time, we're such good buddies. It's hard to play a good friend, especially in the first round, but I'm sure we'll have a lot of opportunities to play each other more."

With current No. 1 Lindsay Davenport sidelined with a bad back, Sharapova can take the top spot for the first time this week by reaching the semifinals if she has the requisite amount of bonus points from the rankings of her beaten opponents, or if not, definitely upon reaching the final. If Sharapova stumbles this week she would could take the No. 1 ranking without even stepping on court next week as Davenport has a large chunk of points dropping off and is not entered in next week's Toronto event.

"I think I played really good in the first set, one of the best in my life," said Kirilenko, who blew off the post-match handshake with the chair umpire after what she felt were some bad calls. "It was the worst umpiring of my life. Of course I was mad about it. I've never seen so many mistakes."

After the match Sharapova tried her hand at some American cliches.

"There was a lot of rustiness," the Russian said. "I was just trying to get in a groove, get my feet wet."

In the only other seeded action on the day, No. 15 Klara Koukalova outlasted American Amy "Down Goes" Frazier in three sets.

Unseeded winners on the day were Uzbek (LL) Varvara Lepchenko (d. (LL) Talaja), Greece's Eleni Daniilidou (d. (Q) Salerni), Czech Iveta Benesova (d. Mirza in three), Spaniard Conchita Martinez (d. Washington), China's (Q) Tiantian Sun (d. (LL) Alves 0-and-1) and Shuai Peng (d. Vento-Kabchi, bagel in the second), Croat Karolina Sprem (d. (Q) Fedak), The Ukraine's Kateryna Bondarenko (d. Linetskaya, bagel in the first), American (WC) Jill Craybas (d. Ruano Pascual in three), and Frenchwoman (Q) Tathiana Garbin (d. (LL) Mattek).

On tap Wednesday in L.A. are Haynes vs. Hantuchova, Dementieva vs. Stosur, Garbin vs. Pierce, Craybas vs. Petrova, Clijsters vs. Sprem, Daniilidou vs. Kuznetsova, Zheng vs. K.Bondarenko, Nakamura vs. Raymond, Peng vs. Schiavone, Dulko vs. Martinez, Sun vs. Bartoli, Fujiwara vs. Safina, and Benesova vs. Chakvetadze.