Serena Williams advances in Rogers Cup in Toronto

Sabine Lisicki, the 2013 Wimbledon finalist, slumped to a 6-1 1-6 7-6 (7/3) defeat to Belinda Bencic, with the Swiss sealing victory after exactly two hours. Bencic had already knocked off Caroline Wozniacki and Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard this week and wanted her German opponent to be next.

Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko beat Witthoeft 6-3 6-4, while Italian Roberta Vinci took 78 minutes to dispose of Russian Daria Gavrilova by the same score.

With rap superstar Drake watching from the stands, Serena Williams shone on center court at the Rogers Cup on Thursday night, cruising past Andrea Petkovic in straight sets.

Serena Williams, of the United States, tosses the ball on a serve to Andrea Petkovic, of Germany, at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament Thursday. My serve didn’t work very well, but I returned well.

“In that moment actually I really tried to go for it”, she said. She’ll next face either fifth-seeded Ana Ivanovic of Serbia or Slovenian qualifier Polona Hercog in the quarter-finals.

Simona Halep, of Romania, hits a return to Angelique Kerber, of… “I was fighting until the end”. “It was a big difference”.

But Halep, runner-up at the French Open last year, did just enough to eliminate the 13th seed and advance to the quarter-finals against Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat France’s Alize Cornet 6-2 4-6 6-2. “I never really need a tremendous amount of matches to play well, but maybe… the older you get the more you need”.

In second-round doubles play, the Canadian duo of Sharon Fichman and Carol Zhao defeated second-seeded Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.

Kerber had won seven in a row and was coming off her fourth title of 2015 after winning last week’s Stanford tournament.