WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Defending champion and No. 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne, Kim Clijsters and eight other Grand Slam title winners head the list of the 104 women granted direct entry to the U.S. Open field Thursday.
Sixteen players will make the draw for the Aug. 30 to Sept. 12 tournament through qualifying, and eight will get wild-card spots from the U.S. Tennis Association.
In addition to Henin-Hardenne, past U.S. Open champions in the field include Venus and Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport.
The United States led the way with 15 players getting direct entry, followed by Russia with 14 and France with nine.
The draw will be Aug. 25.
JPMORGAN CHASE OPEN: In Carson, Calif., Serena Williams defeated Aranxta Parra Santonja 6-0, 6-3 in 53 minutes to lead a parade of seeded players into the quarterfinals.
The top-seeded Williams rolled through the first set and was up 3-0 in the second when the Spaniard won three straight games. Williams regrouped and reeled off the final three games in front of a sparse crowd in the 8,000-seat Home Depot Center stadium.
Third-seeded Lindsay Davenport needed one hour to beat 15th-seeded Amy Frazier 6-2, 6-4.
No. 2 seed Venus Williams was to play Elena Likhovtseva of Russia in a night match.
Other third-round winners: No. 4 Elena Dementieva, 7-5, 7-6 (8) over 14th-seeded Chanda Rubin; No. 5 Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-3, 6-0 over Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi; and No. 7 Nadia Petrova over Jelena Kostanic, 6-3, 6-2.
No. 6 Ai Sugiyama was the only seed among the top eight who lost. She was beaten 6-3, 0-6, 7-6 (3) by No. 11 Francesca Schiavone.
RCA CHAMPIONSHIPS: In Indianapolis, defending champion Andy Roddick overcame blisters on his right hand and a tough challenge from qualifier Michel Kratochvil in a rain-suspended match to move into the third round.
Roddick, playing in his first tournament since losing to Roger Federer in the championship match at Wimbledon, won the opening set 6-4 and was trailing 2-5 when a heavy downpour halted play Wednesday night.
Kratochvil quickly won the second set Thursday, 6-2, but Roddick's big serve produced a 6-4 victory in the third set.
Even though Roddick had blisters on his palm and fingers, he still produced hard serves that reached 148 mph.
Roddick recorded 23 aces, compared with only five by Kratochvil. The top-seeded Roddick won 83 percent of the points when he got his first serve in (38 of 46). Nine of his aces came in the final set, many at crucial points.
In third-round matches, No. 4 Paradorn Schrichaphan of Thailand kept alive his bid to reach the title match for the second straight year by defeating Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-3, 6-0; No. 10 Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia eliminated Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4; and No. 12 Nicolas Kiefer of Germany ousted qualifier Rik DeVoest of South Africa 6-1, 6-4.
GENERALI OPEN: In Kitzbuehel, Austria, top-seeded Rainer Schuettler and French Open champion Gaston Gaudio reached the quarterfinals.
Schuettler advanced when his third-round opponent, No. 13 seed David Sanchez, retired after losing the first set 6-0.
Sanchez pulled out before the second set with pain in his hip and thighs.
Gaudio, seeded second, beat 14th-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 6-3, 6-3 in a match full of unforced errors.
In the quarterfinals, Schuettler will take on Florian Mayer, who eliminated unseeded Argentine Juan Monaco 6-4, 6-4, while Gaudio will play Luis Horna of Peru, who beat three-time Kitzbuehel winner Albert Costa in three sets 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4.
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