Top seed Williams advances to Miami quarterfinals

A few players had it pretty easy in today's 4th round play in Miami. Defending champion Serena Williams, 2nd seed Li Na and Caroline Wozniacki all got through in straight sets, and dropped only seven games among them. Williams ended Coco Vandeweghe's run, Li ran over Carla Suarez Navarro, and Wozniacki really ran over Varvara Lepchenko, who won only one game.

It took Maria Sharapova three sets to beat Kirsten Flipkens, just as it took Angelique Kerber three sets to beat Ekaterina Makarova. And it took Agnieszka Radwanska over two and a half hours to overcome the increasingly pesky Elina Svitolina. (Note: Sharapova double-faulted 10 times.)

The score of the day, however, belonged to Petra Kvitova, who defeated Ana Ivanovic 3-6, 6-0, 6-0. Is that a "Petra" kind of scoreline, or what?

The night match was well-anticipated, and with good reason. Dominika Cibulkova and Venus Williams went at it for almost two hours and 20 minutes, with Cibulkova winning 6-1, 5-7, 6-3. This was a really good match, with each woman fighting like mad. The spectators got a treat, and even though the crowd was very pro-Venus, as expected, they seemed to appreciate the sometimes stunning performance of Cibulkova. The last few points--a break of Williams' serve--were especially impressive. The "new" Cibulkova is healthier, calmer and way more cerebral. She's always been tough.

Here is the quarterfinal draw, and an interesting one it is indeed:

Serena Williams (1) vs. Angelique Kerber (5)
Maria Sharapova (4) vs. Petra Kvitova (8)
Dominika Cibulkova (10) vs. Agnieszka Radwanska (3)
Wozniacki (11) vs. Li (2)

Here are the head-to-heads:

Williams--Kerber: 3-1
Sharapova--Kvitova: 4-2
Cibulkova--Radwanska: 2-5
Wozniacki--Li: 2-3