MASON – World No. 1 Dinara Safina moved a step closer to her eighth final of 2009 when she defeated Shuai Peng 6-3 6-4 on Thursday night.

The match took just 1:16, and was a much easier affair for Safina after her previous match against Roberta Vinci took nearly two hours and went three sets.

“Definitely much better than the first round match,” Safina said. “I had a good practice yesterday, and today I was feeling much better.”

The win sets up a match against former World No. 1 Kim Clijsters in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Earlier in the day on Thursday both Venus and Serena Williams were upset. Read more

Here’s a look at Thursday’s results:

SINGLES THIRD ROUND
[1] Dinara Safina (RUS) d Shuai Peng (CHN) 63 64
Sybille Bammer (AUT) d [2] Serena Williams (USA) 75 64
[14] Flavia Pennetta (ITA) d [3] Venus Williams (USA) 76(2) 64
[4] Elena Dementieva (RUS) d Sonara Cirstea (ROU) 64 64
[5] J Jankovic (SRB) d [9] V Azarenka (BLR) 75 76(4)
[WC] KC Clijsters (BEL) d [6] S Kuznetsova (RUS) 64 46 62
D Hantuchova (SVK) d [7] V Zvonareva (RUS) 76(6) 06 76(5)
[8] C Wozniacki (DEN) d M Czink (HUN) 30 ret. (back)

DOUBLES SECOND ROUND
(7) Nuria Llagostera Vives (ESP) / Maria Jose Sanchez Martinez (ESP) d Maria Kirilenko (RUS) / Elena Vesnina (RUS) 64 62
Akgul Amanmuradova (UZB) / Monica Niculescu (ROU) d Alona Bondarenko (UKR) / Kateryna Bondarenko (UKR) 64 46 10-6

DOUBLES QUARTERFINAL ROUND
[1] Cara Black (ZIM) / Luezel Huber (USA) vs [8] Bethanie Mattek-Sands (USA) / Nadia Petrova (RUS)
[5] Virginia Ruano Pascual (ESP) / Jie Zheng (CHN) d [2] Daniela Hantuchova (SVK) / Ai Sugiyama (JPN) walkover

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