Zvonareva, Ivanovic Seeded For Third-Round Showdown

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour draw ceremony took place Monday at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, and set up a potential third-round clash between the past two BNP Paribas Open singles champions – 2009 winner Vera Zvonareva and 2008 winner Ana Ivanovic.

The 12th-seeded Zvonareva, who dethroned Ivanovic in last year’s final, opens against the winner between Lucie Hradecka and a qualifier. Meanwhile, the 24th-seeded Serbian meets either Anastasija Sevastova or a qualifier in her second-round opening match.

The winner could go on to face No. 8 seed Samantha Stosur of Australia in the fourth round, and possible quarter-final opponents include No. 3 seed Victoria Azarenka, No. 13 seed Yanina Wickmayer, and two-time champion Daniela Hantuchova.

Top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova faces a tricky road to the final, drawn to meet two-time champion and former World No. 1 Kim Clijsters in the fourth round and either sixth-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic or ninth-seeded Italian Flavia Pennetta in the quarter-finals.

Kuznetsova, a two-time finalist in Indian Wells, will first need to make her way safely through her second-round opening match against either Alize Cornet or Carla Suarez Navarro. Last year, Kuznetsova suffered her earliest exit in Indian Wells when she lost to Poland’s Urszula Radwanska in her opener.

In the bottom of the draw, No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark could meet 2006 champion and 10th seed Maria Sharapova in the quarter-finals. Sharapova, who makes her first appearance since a first-round exit in Melbourne, is first seeded to face a pair of Australian Open semi-finalists – No. 18 Zheng Jie in the third round and No. 7 Li Na in the fourth.

The 2004 BNP Paribas Open champion, Justine Henin, makes her return to the desert for the first time in four years when she faces Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova in the first round. Russian Elena Dementieva and Poland’s Agneiszka Radwanska, a potential third-round opponent for Henin, are the highest seeds in the third quarter of the draw.

The 27-year-old Henin has reached the final in her two tournament appearances this season, finishing runner-up to Clijsters in Brisbane and to Serena Williams at the Australian Open.

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