Li, Stosur among second-round winners at Wimbledon

Wimbledon, England – Former Grand Slam champions Li Na and Samantha Stosur were among the early winners Thursday in the second round at Wimbledon.

After a Wednesday of injuries and upsets, the sixth-seeded Li became just the second women's top-10 seed to reach the third round with a 6-2, 1-6, 6-0 win over Romania's Simona Halep.

The bottom half of the draw was turned upside down on Wednesday, as second- seeded Victoria Azarenka, third-seeded Maria Sharapova and ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki all exited. Petra Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon champ, was the only top-10 seed in the bottom half to survive the carnage and did so thanks to a walkover win against Yaroslava Shvedova.

Halep could have posed a problem for Li, as she entered the All England Club after capturing titles each of the past two weeks -- first in Nuremburg and then in Den Bosch. After dominating the second set by winning 28 of the 40 points played, Halep was no match in the third as the 2011 French Open champ turned the tables and won 28 of the 42 points.

Li had lost in the second round at Wimbledon each of the last two years after a quarterfinal appearance in 2011, and was coming off a second-round loss at this year's French Open after a runner-up finish at the Australian Open.

Stosur, the 2011 U.S. Open champ, had little trouble for the second match in a row this week. The 14th-seeded Australian cruised past Olga Puchkova, 6-2, 6-2, after a 6-1, 6-3 rout of Anna Schmiedlova in the first round.

The competition will get a little tougher for Stosur in the third round, as Sabine Lisicki now awaits. The 23rd-seeded German, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2011 and twice a quarterfinalist in the London suburb, thumped Russian veteran Elena Vesnina, 6-3, 6-1.

Other winners Thursday included 18th-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova, American Madison Keys, Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm and Croatian Petra Martic.

Cibulkova needed just 49 minutes to dispatch Spain's Maria Teresa Torro-Flor, 6-0, 6-1, while Keys upended Germany's Mona Barthel, 6-4, 6-2. Date-Krumm advanced with a 6-4, 7-5 triumph over Romania's Alexandra Cadantu and Martic claimed a 7-6 (9-7), 6-1 win over Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.