By GabrielleSmith (TennisEarth.com), Submitted On
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Marion Bartoli from France took the performance to a greater level as she started her defence for the title. She had defeated Venus Williams in the final last year to win the title. Bartoli looked in steaming form as she smashed Ashley Harkleroad within 27 minutes of the start of the match. Harkleroad tried hard in the second as she obtained a hard earned break but then lost her way as the match progressed.

Bartoli played wonderful ground strokes and combined them with accurate and tactful serves to take easy points against the American. She defeated Harkleroad with a scoreline of 6-1, 6-4 to proceed further in the tournament.  A lot is expected from the former Champion as in previous years she has performed to one of the best standards at this tournament 

A satisfied Bartoli quoted, "I'm really happy about my season so far and I'm hoping to continue like that. I'm desperate to be back in the final of a Grand Slam. That's my main goal. My second goal is to have a one digit ranking, but that will come with my results." Bartoli will be gunning for the sixth title of her career with this tournament.

The Russian former world number one, Maria Sharapova avenged her previous loss to Zheng Jie earlier this year by beating the swift Chinese in a thrilling two set match with a scoreline of 6-4, 7-5. Sharapova lost to Jie at Indian Wells and had strategized her match play and harnessed her strengths to compete with the Chinese champion.

Sharapova was glad to win, "Our match at Indian Wells was a really scratchy match. I wasn't playing very well there," She said. "Today I served really well but returned quite poorly. I returned well when I had to, but I'll work on that going forward. Improving with every match is really the goal, and working myself towards the Open."

Other seeded players that advanced in the tournament were Shahar Peer who came back from a set down to win the match in three sets 0-6, 6-4, 6-3 against Daniela Hantuchova. No.7 seed Yanina Wickmayer raced to a quick victory against Chan Yung-Jan in straight sets, winning 6-3, 6-1 and was later joined by Victoria Azarenka, who defeated Ayumi Morita 6-0, 6-2 with relative ease.

In other matches of the day, Maria Kirlenko, Olga Savchuk and Christina McHale recorded comfortable victories to move ahead.