Safina leads charge by seeded players

MIAMI, March 27 (UPI) -- Second-seeded Dinara Safina led a parade of highly-ranked players into the third round Friday at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.

There were 16 seeded players in action during the second round Friday and only three of them lost.

Safina had no trouble advancing with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Mathilde Johansson. Elena Dementieva, seeded fourth, fought off wild card Anastasia Pivovarova 6-0, 3-6, 6-3.

Dementieva defeated Safina in last year's gold medal match at the Beijing Olympics.

No. 8 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova eliminated Tamira Paszek 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 and Ana Ivanovic, the seventh seed, sailed past Mariya Koryttseva 6-0, 6-3.

The seeded players ousted Friday were No. 12 Marion Bartoli (6-4, 6-3 against Anastasiya Yakimova), No. 27 Sybille Bammer (6-2, 6-1 against Samantha Stosur) and No. 28 Alona Bondarenko (6-1, 6-0 against Nicole Vaidisova).

Serena Williams, seeded No. 1 in the event, will make her first appearance Saturday.