Top-seeded Samantha Stosur celebrates No. 5 ranking with victory

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Stosur celebrates ranking with a win

STANFORD, Calif. — Australia’s Samantha Stosur celebrated her highest singles’ ranking ever with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over U.S. qualifier Christina McHale on Wednesday in the second round of the Bank of the West Classic.

The match was Stosur’s first since reaching No. 5 in the world.

“The high ranking feels good,” Stosur said. “It was a goal for me to get to No. 10. Once I got to that point, all of a sudden I moved up to No. 5. To have another big jump like that so soon is really pleasing.

“It’s not like I have changed anything dramatically overnight. It’s just a combination of everything that I have been doing over the past few years and now it’s all coming together. Once you produce some good results, it instills more belief. But I haven’t changed anything in my game. I have still been working on the same things, just getting better at them.”

The top-seeded Stosur needed just over an hour to beat the 161st-ranked McHale, finishing with eight aces and winning 76 percent of her first-serve points.

Third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland and No. 7 Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium also advanced. Radwanska beat Ukrainian qualifier Olga Savchuk 7-6 (4), 6-2, and Wickmayer topped Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 6-1, 6-4.

Stosur will facce Wickmayer in the quarterfinals Friday.

All eight seeds remained alive heading into a late match between No. 2 Elena Dementieva of Russia and Japan’s Kimiko Date Krumm.