KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Marina Erakovic knocked over another rising name in world tennis to advance to the third round of the DFS Classic in Birmingham this morning (NZ time).
Erakovic continued her outstanding form with a 6-3 6-0 defeat of Indian world No 33 Sania Mirza in a lop-sided second-round encounter at the Edgbaston Priory Club.
The world No 64 from Auckland needed just over an hour to beat sixth seed Mirza, who has a WTA title to her name and more than US$1 million in career prizemoney.
Erakovic now has every chance of advancing deep into the US$200,000 ($269,215) tournament.
Her third-round opponent is Russian qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova, also 20, who is ranked 129th in the world.
Croatian-born New Zealander Erakovic has hit a rich vein of form on grass less than two weeks out from her first appearance at Wimbledon.
Last week she was victorious at a US$50,000 tournament in London and yesterday carved a straight sets first-round defeat of Canadian Stephanie Dubois.
Today's was her most convincing performance of them all, winning 58 points to 34 against an opponent considered a genuine top-10 prospect of the future.
Mirza served poorly, landing just 44 per cent of her first serves, a statistic that allowed Erakovic to routinely attack the Indian's second serve to good effect.
Today's result was also a Commonwealth triumph for the New Zealander.
Erakovic is the third-ranked Commonwealth player in the world behind Mirza and 41st ranked Australian Casey Dellacqua, who was also eliminated today.
- NZPA
