Top seeds Samantha Stosur and Elena Dementieva made solid starts to their Stanford Classic campaigns with contrasting second-round victories Wednesday. No. 1 seeded Stosur overcame American qualifier Christina McHale 6-1, 7-5 while Russian second seed Dementieva was made to work a little harder on her return from injury before edging out Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Stosur, who is ranked a career high number five and top seeded in a WTA tournament for the first time, relied on her big serve and forehand to repel her 18-year-old opponent, who also served well but could not contend with the Australian's power. Stosur will next face Yanina Wickmayer in Friday's quarter-finals after the Belgian seventh seed eased past Slovakian Dominica Cibulkova 6-1 6-4. Stosur reached her first grand slam final at the French Open in June and credits her recent success to establishing a game plan and sticking to it. Dementieva will play the winner of the match between fifth seed Maria Sharapova and Belarussian Olga Govortsova. Third seed Agnieszka Radwanska also advanced with a 7-6 6-2 victory over Ukrainian Olga Savchuk. Davydenko in quarters Defending champion Nikolay Davydenko beat Stephane Robert of France 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the Croatia Open quarterfinals Wednesday. The top-seeded Russian will meet Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina, who defeated Italian qualifier Simone Bolelli 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 6-1. Juan Carlos Ferrero, the 2009 finalist, downed Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 for his 25th claycourt victory of the season. The former No. 1 will play Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine, who beat Croatian wild card Franco Skugor 7-6 (1), 6-3. Schiavone loses at Istanbul Britain's Elena Baltacha has caused an upset at the Istanbul Cup by beating top-seeded Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 6-2 in the second round. Schiavone, the French Open champion, was troubled by poor serving and quickly fell behind in the second set in Thursday night's match. The Italian had eight double faults to none by Baltacha, and her first serve percentage was 42, far below the Briton's 59. After her triumph at Roland Garros, Schiavone lost in the first round at Wimbledon. In other matches, third-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia beat Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova 6-3, 6-2, Sorana Cirstea of Romania defeated Johanna Larsson of Sweden, 6-4, 6-4, and Australian Jarmila Groth defeated Anna Lapushchenkova of Russia, 6-2, 6-3. Youzhny in quarters Top seeded Mikhail Youzhny advanced to the Swiss Open quarterfinals Thursday, beating wild card Alexander Sadecky of Switzerland in straight sets. The 14th-ranked Russian won the second round match 7-5, 6-4, ending No. 437 Sadecky's first tour event. Youzhny next faces No. 147 Yuri Schukin from Kazakhstan, a qualifier reaching his first quarterfinals match on tour at age 31. Schukin defeated Portugal's Frederico Gil 6-3, 6-3 on a rain-affected day on Gstaad's outdoor clay courts. Another Russian, Igor Andreev, completed a second-round victory over Switzerland's Marco Chiudinelli 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (6). The match had been suspended late on Wednesday with just the decisive tiebreaker to play. Second-seeded Nicolas Almagro of Spain made Michael Lammer the third home-based loser on the day, rallying to beat the 28-year-old Swiss player 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Almagro faces Jeremy Chardy in Friday's last-eight matches, after the Frenchman beat Finland's Jarkko Nieminen 7-5, 6-2. On Wednesday, Seeded players Albert Montanes and Richard Gasquet each rallied from a set down to win and will meet in the quarterfinals. Montanes of Spain beat Austrian qualifier Andreas Haider-Maurer 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 and Gasquet of France defeated Daniel Brands of Germany 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-0. Spain's Daniel Gimeno-Traver had a 7-5, 6-4 win against Andreas Beck of Germany.
