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Cape Town - World number one Angelique Kerber won her second round match at the China Open with a straight sets win over Barbora Strycova in Beijing on Wednesday.
The German defeated Strycova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-6(4) in a match lasting one hour and 36 minutes and will face 16th seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine next after she beat Germany's Sabine Lisicki 6-4, 6-4.
In the opening set, things went with serve until the sixth game when Strycova dropped her serve to fall behind 2-4 but broke right back, then dropped her own serve for a second time, for Kerber to serve out the set 6-4.
In the second, there were a total of eight breaks of serve and the match went on to be decided by a tie-break which the 28-year-old Kerber won 7-4 to claim the match.
In some other second round matches, fifth seed Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic needed two hours and 29 minutes to get past Russia's Darya Kasatkina 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(7) while British 11th seed Johanna Konta beat Timea Babos of Hungary 7-5, 6-2.
In an upset, unseeded Daria Gavrilova of Australia downed Swiss 12th seed Timea Bacsinszky 4-6, 6-0, 6-4 in over two hours and Caroline Garcia of France beat hometown player Peng Shuai 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(4) in a tight match lasting two hours and 28 minutes.
