Top seeds head into Baku Cup quarterfinals

Top seeds Vera Zvonareva and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova had little trouble Thursday winning second-round matches at the Baku Cup tennis tournament in Azerbaijan. Zvonareva, No. 3 in the world and seeded first this week, had won 71 percent of the points and had a 6-0, 3-0 lead when Kristina Kucova retired. Zvonareva won 18 of the 24 points over Kucova's four service games. Zvonareva has played Kucova twice in her career and only lost two games. Pavlyuchenkova swept past Elena Bovina 6-4, 6-0, even though she dropped serve twice. Pavlyuchenkova won about three-quarters of the points in the second set. Kateryna Bondarenko defeated fourth-seeded Ekaterina Makarova 6-1, 6-4 in just over an hour. Bondarenko cashed in all four of her break-point chances. Thursday's fourth second-round match went to Anna Tatishvili 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 over Tatia Mikadze. That put Tatishvili into the tournament quarterfinals Friday against Zvonareva. Pavlyuchenkova will face Galina Voskoboeva while Bondarenko draws Mariya Koryttseva. The other quarterfinal was determined Wednesday and has seventh-seeded Ksenia Pervak playing Aravane Rezai.