Montreal, March 10, 2014 – Milos Raonic (Thornhill, ON) and Aleksandra Wozniak (Blainville, QC) joined Eugenie Bouchard (Westmount, QC) in the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open on Monday in Indian Wells, California.
After defeating world no. 16 Sabine Lisicki in the previous round, Wozniak knocked out world no. 22 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-0 advance to the fourth round of a WTA Premier Mandatory event for the first time in her career. She reached the third round in Indian Wells in 2009. Wozniak raced to a one set lead before finding herself down 2-5 in the second set. She fought back to force a tiebreak, saving a set point along the way, but was unable to close the match in straight sets. The 26-year-old re-discovered her dominant form, losing just four total points in the final frame to come away with the victory in just over two hours. Wozniak lost her only previous meeting against Pavlyuchenkova in Beijing in 2009. She will face top seed and Australian Open champion Na Li on Tuesday.
Raonic’s win was much more straightforward than his last match against Edouard Roger-Vasselin. The tournament’s tenth seed took care of Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-4, 6-3, hitting 11 aces compared to one by his opponent. Raonic also reached the fourth round in the California desert last year before falling to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He will have to beat Brit Andy Murray to get to the quarter-finals in 2014. Raonic won the last meeting between the two players in a third set tiebreak at Tokyo in 2012.
On Tuesday, Bouchard will take on Simona Halep of Romania at 2 p.m. E.T. while Wozniak will face Li on Centre Court at approximately 11:30 p.m. E.T.
