Molik and Sharapova advance into next round.

In her third appearance at the Swisscom Challenge Vera Zvonareva could not improve her last year’s result where she reached the quarterfinals losing to eventual winner Justine Henin-Hardenne. Molik already had a better result than in 2003 when she qualified and lost in the first round.

Molik now leads the head-to-head 2-0 against the 6th seed Zvonareva. The 20 year-old Russian had problems with her service today. Hitting three double faults in her first service game, somehow she could hold on, not giving away the first break.

Molik breaks in the 6th game and keeps her lead to win the first set 6-3 in 29 minutes. In the second set Zvonareva starts with a double fault, this time she lost her service game and the Australian is leading but hands over her second service game to the Russian. At 2-2 both players hold their service game until Zvonareva break Molik’s serve on 6-5 taking the second set 7-5.

In both the 5th and the 7th game of the third set Zvonareva loses her service game on love, mainly because Molik hits winners. In the 7th game on 0-40 the Russian hits a double fault. Alicia Molik serves for the match leading 5-2 and after 91 minutes of play she takes the game, set and the match 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.

Russian Maria Sharapova defeats Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova in two sets 6-4, 7-5. One break in the first set was enough for Sharapova to take it 6-4 after she took the 5th service game away from Hantuchova. The players were pretty equal to each other both hitting winners and both making the same amount of errors. Sharapova had 35 unforced and 28 forced errors, Hantuchova 28 unforced and 33 forced errors. Sharapova won 38 points on her first serve, Hantuchova 39. On their second serve they both scored 13 times. The difference today was serving Sharapova scored 11 aces and 3 double faults; Hantuchova scored 2 aces and 8 double faults.

“It was not very easy”, Sharapova said after the match. “I served really well until the double faults, I don’t think anything was missing in my game today. I was a bit frustrated about some calls. Coming from three weeks in Asia I have to adjust to the court, this is quite different from the courts in Asia”.

“I don’t have any problems with different courts, I like the variations and it's fast here. I can’t play as I play on grass here; the only comparison is that it's green. Well I believe grass is green, it has been a long time since I last saw it”.

“With all those injuries and withdrawals the top half of the schedule has become a lot weaker but I don’t mind playing top players because it can raise your level”.

Since Venus Williams will meet Serbian qualifier Ana Ivanovic tomorrow it's likely that Sharapova faces Williams in the next round. “We have only played once in an exhibition match in Hong Kong, I lost in two sets”, the 17-year-old Russian did not remember the exact score.

Looking back at her victory at Wimbledon she said: “It is an amazing feeling being Grand Slam Champion but I still want to accomplish more, I deserve the compliments I get a lot more then I did before Wimbledon”.