Stosur, Peer upset in Australian Open play

MELBOURNE, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Top-10 seeds Samantha Stosur and Shahar Peer were beaten Saturday in the third round of the Australian Open.

Stosur, seeded fifth and considered Australia's best hope this year for a home-country Open champion, was handed a 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 defeat by 25th-seeded Petra Kvitova and 22nd-seeded Flavia Pennetta took out Peer, seeded 10th, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.

Kvitova piled up 35 winners and converted the lone service break in the second set into a victory. She took 72 percent of the points on serve. Pennetta was able to finish off six of her nine break-point situations in advancing to the fourth round.

No. 2-seeded Vera Zvonareva defeated No. 31 Lucia Safarova 6-2, 7-6 (11-9) as she took a step toward a third consecutive Grand Slam finals appearance by surviving an 86-minute second set. Third-seeded Kim Clijsters, who beat Zvonareva in the U.S. Open title match last year, headed to the fourth round after a 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 victory over Alize Cornet.

Ekaterina Makarova ousted No. 13 Nadia Petrova 6-2, 3-6, 8-6 and Iveta Benesova topped 16th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 in advancing while Peng Shuai was the fourth unseeded player to make the Round of 16 when she got past Ayumi Morita 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

No. 12-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska had the most decisive win in Saturday's play, winning more than two-thirds of the points in taking out Simona Halep 6-1, 6-2 in 56 minutes.

She draws Peng in the fourth round while Clijsters goes against Makarova, Zvonareva is to play Benesova and Kvitova faces Pennetta.