FRANCE'S Sandrine Testud stunned the world number three, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain, with a 6-0, 7-5 win on her way to the quarter-finals at the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Florida, yesterday. Testud, ranked 29th, avenged a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 loss to Sanchez Vicario at last week's Evert Cup quarter-finals.
The 24-year-old from Lyon will now face either compatriot Alexandra Fusai, or 11th-seeded Austrian Barbara Paulus.
Sanchez Vicario struggled in her two earlier matches here after an opening bye, rallying to beat Japan's Naoko Kijimuta 4-6 6-3 6-2 and outlasting Slovakia's Henrieta Nogyova 7-4 4-6 6-4.
Testud rolled through the first set, breaking Sanchez Vicario in the fourth game in only four points and taking the set when the Spaniard sent a lob wide. Sanchez Vicario sent a forehand into the net to give Testud a break in the sixth game and Testud moved ahead 5-2. Sanchez Vicario saved a match point in the ninth game and broke back when Testud was wide with a forehand.
Testud answered by holding serve and rallying when Sanchez Vicario was within a point of forcing a tie-breaker, ending the match with a cross-court forehand the Spaniard could only slap back into the net.
On Sunday, the fourth seed, Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, narrowly avoided an upset as he eked out a win over local favourite Vince Spadea in an ill-tempered third-round match.
The unpredictable Croatian fought off Spadea and a hostile crowd to record a 3-6 7-6 6-4 victory.
Ivanisevic, runner-up here last year, looked sluggish early in the match, throwing in the occasional ace but missing on many of his groundstrokes.
The atmosphere turned ugly late in the third set when the umpire overruled two apparent Ivanisevic double-faults in the eighth game, each coming at break point for Spadea. Howls and boos from the partisan crowd over the controversial and critical rulings stopped play briefly before Ivanisevic held serve.
Ivanisevic belted three aces in the final game to bring his total to 17, before ending the contest with a backhand winner.
Third seed Michael Chang saw his hot streak halted by Sergi Bruguern. A sluggish looking Chang fell 6-4 6-3 to the 35th-ranked Spaniard in a clash of former French Open champions, ending the American's string of 11 consecutive match wins.
Women's top seed Martina Hingis, meanwhile, stretch her unblemished 1997 match record to 22-0 by taking out a player who has been projected as one of the Swiss teen's likely future challengers.
In a third-round match-up of 16-year-olds, soon-to-be world number one Hingis picked off American Venus Williams 6-4 6-2 after spotting Williams the first three games.
