Sharapova powers into round three

NEW YORK -- Maria Sharapova produced another display of fearsome big hitting to roll into the US Open third round on Thursday.

The 20-year-old Russian glamour girl opened her shoulders to blast past overmatched Australian Casey Dellaqua 6-1, 6-0 in just 51 minutes.

That makes it just two games lost in two rounds for the defending champion, who next takes on 18-year-old Polish hope Agnieszka Radwanska.

"I did a pretty good job of being solid, but it's only going to get tougher from here on," she said.

"I'm feeling really good and that's the best part of being an athlete - just coming out and being healthy."

Fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova battled her way into the third round with an unconvincing 6-3 4-6 6-0 victory over Camille Pin.

The Russian, a surprise women's singles champion here in 2004, committed 34 unforced errors to her French opponent's nine.

She only managed 12 more winners than those errors, 19 of which came in a terrible second set against the unseeded player.

"In the second set I missed so many of my chances," Kuznetsova said. "I've been missing so many, I was not moving my feet. It wasn't a good second set for sure but there was nothing I could change.

"So from that moment on I just started to turn it on and just play the right shots. But I'm not happy it went to the third set."

Kuznetsova will next face Anabel Medina Garrigues after the 31st seed beat fellow Spaniard Lourdes Dominguez Lino 7-5 6-2.

Sixth seed Anna Chakvetadze faces a third-round clash with India's Sania Mirza after breezing past Nicole Pratt of Australia, taking just 72 minutes to win 6-3 6-4.

Mirza, seeded 26th, defeated veteran American Laura Granville 6-3 7-5 to set up a showdown with her former junior doubles partner.

Former world No. 1 Martin Hingis also defied the rising temperatures to beat unseeded French opponent Pauline Parmentier 6-2 7-5.

The duo traded six straight service breaks before 1997 champion Hingis, seeded 16th, closed out the match.

The Swiss set up a clash with unseeded Belarussian Victoria Azarenka, who beat Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-2 6-2. E-mail to a friend