Serena, Venus Miami Winners, Svitolina Upset; Kerber v Andreescu Sat.
The sisters Serena and Venus Williams have combined to win their home event of Miami 11 times, and Friday they continued on their way to another.
Serena struggled in a poor second set but otherwise made it through against Swede Rebecca Peterson 6-3, 1-6, 6-1.
“I’m not really thinking about my match too much today. I wasn’t really happy with my performance. I had to take a lot of time off the last week,” the 8-time champion Serena said.
“It’s definitely not easy at all, but I’m through it. That’s that. I just got to get my game back to where I know it can be.”
Venus was on against Carla Suarez Navarro who upset the 3-time Miami winner back in 2015. But after a tough start, Venus was too strong for the Spaniard in a 7-6(4), 6-1 victory.
Indian Wells champion Bianca Andreescu upped her win streak to nine besting the last person to beat her, Sofia Kenin, 6-3, 6-3.
Andreescu’s win sets up an Indian Wells final rematch tonight against Angelique Kerber.
“I try not to overthink about what happened last week,” the 18-year-old Canadian said. “I know I just won a really big tournament, now I’m here in Miami.
“The only pressure I think is the pressure I put on myself. If I go into every match playing my best — not playing my best but trying my best, because you can’t play your best every match — if you try [your] best every match, give 100 percent, that’s all that matters to me.”
Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Sloane Stephens, Karolina Pliskova and Caroline Wozniacki were also winners.
But a bunch of high profile seeds tumbled out. No. 6 seed Elina Svitolina was sent home by Yafan Wang 6-2, 6-4. The hot-handed Belinda Bencic fell to Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 7-5.
And Monica Niculescu upset the slumping Garbine Muguruza 7-6, 4-6, 6-2.
“I love it here, I like the new stadium, I like all the facilities that we have, so I’m so happy that we’re here,” Niculescu said. “Many Romanians, I had so much support and every ball they were cheering for me. I liked that I moved well, and I saw the court very good, and I could do amazing shots, so it was pretty good.”
On tap on a big Saturday, top seed Osaka returns to face Su-wei Hsieh, Petra Kvitova collides with Donna Vekic and there’s the Andreescu-Kerber clash.
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