Radwanska and Kvitova Both Move on at Indian Wells
Agnieszka Radwanska and Petra Kvitova advanced to the fourth round of the 2013 BNP Paribas Open, a win away from a quarterfinal clash between the two Top 10 stars. The number three-seeded Radwanska was the first to take the court, but she spent far longer on there, needing exactly two and a half hours to finally put the 27th-seeded Sorana Cirstea away in three sets, 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-4.
"She was playing very good tennis from the beginning to the end," Radwanska said. "Every set was very tight, and I was getting a bit nervous at 5-1 in the third set when she started to play unbelievable tennis – she was hitting the ball so well. But the most important thing is I won the match in the end."
Radwanska will next face the 13th-seeded Maria Kirilenko, who defeated American qualifier Mallory Burdette, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Radwanska leads Kirilenko in their head-to-head series, 6-2, and has won their last five meetings.
The fifth-seeded Kvitova had some late trouble, but beat Ukrainian qualifier Lesia Tsurenko, 6-2, 7-6(5).
"I started pretty well today—I knew what I had to do, and I didn’t make a lot of mistakes," Kvitova said. "It was a nice first set for me, but then she came back and started playing more aggressively, and she started making me make some more mistakes. She came back very strong in that second set."
Next up for Kvitova will be the 19th- seeded Klara Zakopalova, who pulled off a minor upset in one of the first matches of the day, defeating the number 12 seed Dominika Cibulkova, 6-4, 7-5. Zakopalova has beaten Kvitova in both of their previous meetings.
