Li Makes Triumphant Return From Injury

There were mixed fortunes for the two seeds in action on Day 3 of the Mondial Australian Women's Hardcourts. No.1 seed Nicole Vaidisova shook off a slow start to defeat Casey Dellacqua, while No.7 Sybille Bammer's challenge for the Tier III title came to an abrupt halt when she fell to Li Na in a three-set epic.
 
Vaidisova made a flying start to the 2007 season Down Under, reaching her second Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open, but this form was nowhere to be seen in the opening two sets of her clash with Dellacqua as she struggled for parity with the Australian wildcard. However, the Czech starlet displayed her true class in the decider as she moved through the gears and into the second round courtesy of a 57 75 60 victory. Next up for the 18-year-old will be Germany's Tatjana Malek, who triumphed over Japan's Aiko Nakamura, 75 63.
 
Austria's Bammer was involved in arguably the day's most entertaining match, but unfortunately for the world No.19 it was her opponent Li who came out on top in their two hour, 13-minute battle. Chinese No.1 Li missed the second half of 2007 with a right-rib stress fracture and will have been delighted with the 64 46 64 win on her return.
 
Meeting Li for a place in the quarterfinals will be Monique Adamczak. The Australian wildcard entry claimed an impressive 76(4) 36 75 victory over Russia's Elena Vesnina to reach the round of 16 at the Royal Pines Resort for the second time in her career.
 
In the bottom half of the draw the unseeded trio of Dominika Cibulkova, Flavia Pennetta and Julia Schruff all secured second-round berths with straight-set successes. Two years ago Pennetta finished runner-up at the Gold Coast and the Italian showed glimpses of this form during her 64 61 defeat of Timea Bacsinszky. Cibulkova and Schruff were arguably even more impressive during their comprehensive victories over Virginie Razzano and Lourdes Domínguez Lino respectively.
 
The first of the round of 16 clashes also took place on Tuesday, with Belarusian teen sensation Victoria Azarenka knocking out Ukrainian lucky loser Yuliana Fedak, 64 62.
 
The standout doubles pairing of 2007, Cara Black and Liezel Huber, are also in action at the $175,000 event this week and the No.1 seeds ensured there were no early season blues as they successfully negotiated a tricky opening-round clash with the talented wildcard pairing of Patty Schnyder and Nicole Vaidisova, 62 63. Day 3's other doubles match saw France's Nathalie Dechy and Stéphanie Foretz knock out the all-Chinese duo of Ji Chunmei and Sun Shengnan, 62 36 104.