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Wins at Indian Wells for Stosur and Ebden

Australians Samantha Stosur and Matthew Ebden both scored second round wins at the WTA/ATP Indian Wells tournament.

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Source: AAP


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Samantha Stosur and Matthew Edben both scored second round wins in a good day for Australian tennis at the WTA/ATP Indian Wells tournament in California.

Sixth seed Stosur breezed past American wildcard Irina Falconi 6-0 6-3 while Ebden scored an upset victory over Frenchman Julien Benneteau.

The 24-year-old Ebden, who is the world No.91, is ranked 58 places below Benneteau.

Stosur put on an impressive serving display, blasting four aces and registering an 83 per cent success rate on first-serve points in the 48-minute match.

World No.1 Novak Djokovic opened his Indian Wells' title defence with a comfortable win over Kazakh qualifier Andrey Golubev 6-3 6-2.

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"It was a good start," Djokovic said. "We didn't play a beautiful match. There were a lot of unforced errors but it was the opening match and I am still trying to adjust to this court and get used to the conditions. Hopefully the next match will be better."

Djokovic, who came into Indian Wells last year riding a winning streak that he eventually stretched to 41 matches, is now 11-1 for the season.

The lone blemish on his record being a loss in the Dubai semi-finals last week to Andy Murray, who takes the Indian Wells court in a later match.

Djokovic, who won his fifth grand slam title at the Australian Open in January, advanced to the third round, where he will face South African Kevin Anderson, who won in a walkover when German Philipp Kohlschreiber withdrew.

Former world No.1 Ana Ivanovic avenged her round one loss at Roland Garros by routing Johanna Larsson in straight sets.

The 24-year-old Serb, who won the Indian Wells title in 2008, improved to 2-1 lifetime against the Swede, needing just 61 minutes to dispatch Larsson in their second-round match 6-1 6-2.

"I didn't play good at the French Open, so I knew I had a better chance this time around," Ivanovic said. "It was a bit of an awkward match, but I am still so happy to get that revenge and win."

In other matches on Saturday, Sweden's No.1 Sofia Arvidsson cruised past Monica Niculescu 6-3 6-3 and Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain surprised 11th-seeded Sabine Lisicki 6-1 6-4.

On the men's side, Andy Roddick rallied to beat Lukasz Kubot 4-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 and Czech Tomas Berdych beat Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-7 (2-7) 6-3 6-4.


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