By Chris Oddo | Friday March 23, 2018
Venus Williams battled past Natalia Vikhlyantseva at the Miami Open to set a third-round clash with Kiki Bertens.
Photo Source: Clive Brunskill/Getty
Venus Williams is carrying the torch for the Williams sisters at the Miami Open. With Serena an upset victim in the first round, Venus made sure she stuck around by taking down 21-year-old Russian qualifier Natalia Vikhlyantseva, 7-5, 6-4.
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Williams battled hard to snag the first set, surviving an 18-minute 11th game to finally break through for a 6-5 lead. She held the next game, and in the second set rallied from a break down to clinch her 62nd career victory at the Miami Open.
The win leaves the 37-year-old just 13 victories behind her sister Serena (75-9) on the all-time Miami Open win list and sets up a third-round clash with No.29-seeded Kiki Bertens.
The three-time Miami champion improves to 7-3 on the season.
"At the end, you try to win the last point and walk towards the net as the winner of the last point,” Williams said. “I think that's what I worked towards, and got there."
No.4-seeded Elina Svitolina (d. Osaka), No.6-seeded Jelena Ostapenko (d. Babos), No.9-seeded Petra Kvitova (d. Sabalenka) and No.11-seeded Johanna Konta (d. Flipkens) also advanced on a busy Friday at Miami.
No.15-seeded Kristina Mladenovic (Petra Martic), No.16-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe (Danielle Collins), No.19-seeded Daria Kasatkina (Sofia Kenin), No.24-seeded Elena Vesnina (Donna Vekic), No.28-seeded Anett Kontaveit (Maria Sakkari) and No.31-seeded Zhang Shuai (Beatriz Haddad Maia) were upset on Friday.