Henin strolls into Berlin’s third round

BERLIN – World number-one Justine Henin strolled into the third-round of Berlin’s WTA tournament as she won her opening match yesterday with a straight sets win over teenage German wild-card Tatjana Malek.

The 24-year-old made light work of her second-round tie, her first game since winning the Warsaw WTA tournament on Monday, and saw off the 19-year-old Malek only dropping two games in her 6-1, 6-1 victory. Rarely straying from the base-line, Henine overwhelmed her opponent with an array of powerful shots and was never really tested by Malek, ranked 108 in the world, as the world number-one chases her fourth title of the season.Elsewhere, seventh-seed Nadia Petrova, the defending champion, coasted through her second-round tie against France’s Severine Bremond with a straight-set 6-3, 6-2 win.Petrova will meet tenth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva in the third round after she recovered from losing the first set to win 5-7, 6-3, 6-1 over Meghann Shaughnessy from the US.And there was a shock in the day’s first game when Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova, seeded 11th, went out in the first round after she was beaten 6-1, 6-3 win by Czech qualifier Zuzana Ondraskova.Nampa-AFPRarely straying from the base-line, Henine overwhelmed her opponent with an array of powerful shots and was never really tested by Malek, ranked 108 in the world, as the world number-one chases her fourth title of the season.Elsewhere, seventh-seed Nadia Petrova, the defending champion, coasted through her second-round tie against France’s Severine Bremond with a straight-set 6-3, 6-2 win.Petrova will meet tenth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva in the third round after she recovered from losing the first set to win 5-7, 6-3, 6-1 over Meghann Shaughnessy from the US.And there was a shock in the day’s first game when Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova, seeded 11th, went out in the first round after she was beaten 6-1, 6-3 win by Czech qualifier Zuzana Ondraskova.Nampa-AFP