World No. 1 women's tennis player Justine Henin of Belgium and Ana Ivanovic of Serbia have advanced to the semifinals of the Sydney International hard court tennis tournament in Australia.
Henin, the top seed, scored a 6-2, 6-love win over Kaia Kanepi of Estonia. Ivanovic had a tougher time, needing three sets to get past Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. The semifinal is a rematch of last year's French Open final, which Henin won to capture the title.
The other women's semifinal has 2nd seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia taking on Nicole Vaidisova of the Czech Republic. Kuznetsova scored a 6-4, 6-0 win over Italian Francesca Schiavone. Vaidisova defeated 3rd seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia (6-4, 4-6, 6-4).
In the men's second round, four seeded players - including top seed Richard Gasquet of France - were knocked out of the tournament. Gasquet fell in three sets to Russian Dmitry Tursunov (3-6, 6-3, 6-4).
Fifth seeded Carlos Moya of Spain lost in straight sets to Argentina's Agustin Calleri (6-3, 6-4). Sixth seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia fell in two tiebreakers to compatriot Chris Guccione (7-6, 7-6). Eighth seeded Fernando Verdasco of Spain lost his match with Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean (6-3, 6-4).
The tournament is one of the final warm-up events before the Australian Open starts Monday in Melbourne.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
