Wimbledon Top Seeds Cruise on Through

World’s number one, Amelie Mauresmo crushed Ivana Abramovic of Croatia with a 6-0, 6-0 win in only 39 minutes. Wimbledon officials placed Mauresmo on Court Two, which surprised the top seed: “To be honest it surprised me a little bit when I heard about the schedule,” Mauresmo said. “You want to play on the biggest courts, that is for sure. I thought ‘OK, I will play on Court Two today and then I will have to prove myself again to go on the bigger ones.’”

Meanwhile, Venus Williams dominated the grass court and defeated Bethanie Mattek 6-1, 6-0, in 51 minutes.

Maria Sharapova (no. 4) didn’t stay far behind, defeating Israel’s Anna Smashnova 6-2, 6-0 in 51 minutes. That seemed to be a popular number at Wimbledon yesterday. “I just had to go for my shots, try to come in and put some pressure on her because she’ll run all day out there,” the 19-year-old Sharapova said. “If you have a player that loves to run around the baseline and hit high balls over the net you can step in and you’re not going to see a very long match.”

Justine Henin-Hardenne (no. 3) defeated Russian Ekaterina Bychkova 6-1, 6-2.

And Kim Clijsters (no. 2) walked on through to the third round when opponent, Viktoria Kutuzova of Ukraine was forced to withdraw due to a viral infection.

Martina Hingis (no. 12) is still going strong, having defeated Italy’s Tatiana Garbin, 6-1, 6-2, and will go on to face Japan’s own Ai Sugiyama.

(source)