Marion Bartoli wasted little time in brushing aside the top seed, Svetlana Kuznetsova, in the fourth round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. The Russian was dispatched by her French opponent 6-3, 6-0 in 56 minutes in a one-sided encounter punctuated by Kuznetsova requiring three bouts of physio treatment on a shoulder injury.
Bartoli, seeded 13th, broke twice in the first set and converted all three of her break chances in the second. Kuznetsova, clearly struggling, had no answer to Bartoli in the second set in which she made an impressive 79% of first serves but won just 33% of points on it. Bartoli, in contrast, won 90% of her first-serve points and 75% of her second.
Kuznetsova revealed she had suffered the injury in her first match of the tournament and it had grown steadily worse. She said: "It wasn't so bad as today; today was really bad. At 5-3 I started to serve and I felt like a pull. But I still kept serving. I almost had stars in my eyes it was so painful.
"I called the physio and tried to continue to play. I think I should have pulled out earlier. I mean, it's impossible. You know, I cannot return. Then I cannot serve. That was my choice to play."
Bartoli's reward is a quarter-final clash against the 12th seed, Yanina Wickmayer, who comfortably dismissed Timea Bacsinszky 6-0, 6-1.
Venus Williams survived an early scare to beat Daniela Hantuchova 1-6, 7-5, 6-4 after the Slovakian stormed out of the blocks, racing into a 4-0 lead in the first set. Williams dropped eight of the first nine games before rallying at 2-0 down in the second set and the No3 seed booked herself a match against the sixth seed, Agnieszka Radwanska, who cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 triumph over Yaroslava Shvedova.
Caroline Wozniacki had no such problems and the second seed needed little more than an hour to dismiss the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 6-2. She will face Justine Henin in the quarter-finals after the former world No1 beat the 11th seed Vera Zvonareva 6-1, 6-4.
Elsewhere, Kim Clijsters sent the defending champion Victoria Azarenka out of the tournament with the Belgian triumphing 6-4, 6-0 to set herself up with another tricky opponent in Samantha Stosur who defeated Jelena Jankovic 6-1, 7-6 (11/9).