By Mario Sarmento
In the last match in Sunday’s day session, Venus Williams held off a valiant Casey Dellacqua 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 to advance to the women’s fourth round at the 2014 Sony Open Tennis tournament. “Obviously, I’m happy with the win to close it out, and to go to a third set tiebreak is awesome,” Williams said. “What else can you say?” Williams served up 11 aces in the victory, which takes her past the third round for the 15th time in Key Biscayne. She also improved to 54-10 all-time in Miami, third-best all-time among women.
Next up for Williams is 10th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova, who beat 22nd seed Alize Cornet earlier Sunday, 7-6 (6), 6-4. “I know she hits it hard and goes for it,” Williams said of Cibulkova. “We’ll see. I just haven’t played her in so long.”
In the night session, No. 11 seed Caroline Wozniacki took out No. 17 Sloane Stephens in a match that lasted just 55 minutes, 6-1, 6-0, on Stadium Court. At one point, Wozniacki won 13 consecutive points bridging the first and second sets in improving to 4-0 all-time against the American. The Dane, who has equaled her best result at the Sony Open by reaching the fourth round, won 56 points in the match, including six of eight break points. Wozniacki will play another American, Varvara Lepchenko, on Tuesday. Lepchenko outlasted Croatian Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-6(2) earlier Sunday.
In the last match of the night, No. 4 seed David Ferrer of Spain topped No. 31 seed Andreas Seppi of Italy, 6-3, 6-2.d Ferrer, a Sony Open finalist last year, will face No. 20 seed Kei Nishikori in the fourth round Tuesday. Nishikori notched an impressive win against No. 15 seed Grigor Dimitrov earlier, 7-6(1), 7-5.