Safarova wins in second-round upset at Pan Pacific Open

TOKYO, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Lucie Safarova posted an upset win Tuesday in second-round action of the Toray Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament in Tokyo.

Safarova defeated eighth-seeded Roberta Vinci 7-5, 6-3 behind six breaks in 11 receiving games. She ended up winning 52 percent of the points off Vinci's serve, enough to overcome dropping her own serve twice in each set.

Fifth-seeded Angelique Kerber routed Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor 6-0, 6-1 in 54 minutes. The only game she lost came while serving but she won 67 percent of the points overall. Her 69-percent win rate off Torro-Flor's serve resulted in seven breaks.

Also in the second round, No. 7-seeded Petra Kvitova stopped Belinda Bencic 7-5, 6-4 with two breaks in each set.

The first round of the $2.3 million WTA Premier-level tournament wrapped up Monday, with Madison Keys outlasting 10th-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro 5-7, 7-5, 6-2. After dropping serve six times in the first two sets, Keys lost only five points on serve and saved both breaks points she saw in the third.

No. 11-seeded Ana Ivanovic was on the court 50 minutes in a 6-1, 6-1 romp past Annika Beck. She lost only nine points on serve and took nearly two-thirds of the points when Beck served.

Simona Halep, the 13th seed, escaped an upset with a break when Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was serving for the match in the second set. Halep then had two breaks in the third set before Pavlyuchenkova retired, leaving Halep with a 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 3-0 victory.

Pavlyuchenkova was coming off a tough three-set battle Sunday with Agnieszka Radwanska in the final of the KDB Korea Open in Seoul.

Two Japanese players were among first-round winners. Ayumi Morita defeated Laura Robson 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 and Kimiko Date-Krumm, who won the tournament in 1995, advanced when, after Date-Krumm built a 6-2, 4-1 lead, Anastasia Rodionova retired.