Mercury Tennis Tournament Celebrates Heroes

Top-seeded Marion Bartoli of France will make her debut in the 2012 Mercury Insurance Open tonight at a session where veterans, military, police and fire personnel will be recognized.

Bartoli will face Vania King, who was raised in Long Beach, in a second- round match. Bartoli is 10th in the Women's Tennis Association rankings, while King is 59th. Bartoli has won three of her five matches against King.

The "Celebrate Our Heroes" ceremony will be held following the match, with Navy Cmdr. Abe Thomas singing and saxophonist Michael Lington performing a patriotic melody.

All veterans and current military, police and fire personnel will receive two free tickets with proper identification. Gates will open for the evening session at 4:30 p.m. with play beginning at 7 p.m.

The evening session will conclude with a doubles match with the third- seeded team of Americans Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears facing Eleni Daniilidou of Greece and Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia.

Two seeded players are scheduled to be in action during the day session, which is set to begin at 11 a.m. Eighth-seeded Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa will face U.S. Olympic team member Varvara Lepchenko in the second match on the stadium court.

Scheepers defeated Rancho Santa Fe resident Coco Vandeweghe, 6-2, 7-6 (4), in a first-round match Tuesday night. Scheepers holds a 3-1 lead over Lepchenko in their head-to-head meetings.

Qualifier Alexa Glatch of Newport Beach will face fourth-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova in the third match on the stadium court.

Each of the top four seeded players in the 28-player singles draw received first-round byes.

In Tuesday's play, Melanie Oudin of Marietta, Ga., overcame two match points in a second-set tiebreaker to defeat Sloane Stephens of Coral Springs, Fla. 1-6, 7-6 (8), 6-0, in a match that ended at 10:58 p.m.

Stephens won the first set in 22 minutes and took a 4-2 lead in the second. The set eventually went to a tiebreaker, which Stephens led, 6-4, putting her one point away from winning the match, but Oudin won the next four points to win the set.

Oudin lost in Sunday's final qualifying round, but got her spot in the main draw when Sorana Cirstea of Romania withdrew because of a right adductor strain.

In afternoon play, fifth-seeded Christina McHale of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., who will play in the Summer Olympics, defeated Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia, 7-6 (5), 7-5; and Yung-Jan Chan of Taiwan advanced when seventh- seeded Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium retired from the match because of a lower back injury. Chan won the first set, 7-6 (6).

McHale and Gajdosova both held serve through the first 10 games of the first set. Gajdosova broke McHale's serve in the 11th game, but McHale broke back to force the tiebreaker.

McHale took a 6-4 lead in the tiebreaker, then served out the tiebreaker at 6-5.

In the second set, each player again held serve through the first 10 games. As Gajdosova served at 5-5, she let three game points slip away and McHale broke for a 6-5 lead, then held serve in the next game to close out the one-hour, 57-minute match.

"It wasn't easy out there," McHale said. "My opponent played really well. It was hard to get a read on her serve."

-CNS