PARIS -- Daniela Hantuchova will face top seed Maria Sharapova in the second round of the Open GDF Suez after beating Marina Erakovic on Tuesday.Kelvin Hayden . Hantuchova was leading 6-3, 3-0, and looked set for a straight-sets victory before Erakovic retired without citing a specified reason. Sharapova leads Hantuchova 8-1 in their head-to-heads, with the Slovaks only win against the four-time Grand Slam champion who has won every major when they first played 10 years ago. In other first round matches, there were wins for Frenchwoman Alize Cornet and Yvonne Meusburger of Austria. Cornet laboured past Magdalena Rybarikova of Serbia 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 and Meusburger beat Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany 7-5, 6-1. Cornet closed out the first set on serve after breaking Rybarikova twice. The Serb struggled on her serve in the second set but Cornet missed chances to break her midway through the set and then twice dropped her own serve. At 6-5 and 30-40 on Cornets serve, Rybarikova broke Cornet again to level the match. But then Cornet broke her twice at the start of the third set to open up a 3-0 lead and regain control. Mike Ditka . Players suspended during the season for a performance-enhancing drug violation will not be eligible for that years post-season. In addition, discipline will increase from 50 games to 80 for a first testing violation and from 100 games to a season-long 162 for a second. A third violation remains a lifetime ban. Walter Payton . "Theres no way hes going anywhere but here," Panthers GM Dale Tallon told the Miami Heralds George Richards. "We have to let him grow.SAO PAULO - Paolo Lorenzi of Italy reached his first ATP semifinal by upsetting fourth-seeded Juan Monaco of Argentina 7-6 (6), 6-7 (4), 6-4 at the Brazil Open on Friday. The 114th-ranked Lorenzi broke Monacos serve to go up 4-3 in the decisive set and held on to close the match in 2 hours, 34 minutes at the Ibirapuera Arena. The 32-year-old Italian squandered a match point before losing the second set, but was in control in the third to pick up the win in the ATP 250 tournament in South Americas biggest city. Lorenzi, who had 12 aces, made it to the semis for the first time after five quarterfinal losses in his career. "Im very happy to finally breakthrough to the semifinals," Lorenzi said. "Ive had a lot of opportunities before but was never able to come up with the victory at this stage. For sure this is one of my greatest weeks on the tour." The 43rd-ranked Monaco, a former top 10 in the world, was trying to win his 200th clay-court match. He is the fifth-greatest winner in the surface, behind Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer, Tommy Robredo and Nicolas Almagro. Brandon Marshall. . Monaco had a set point in the first set but couldnt capitalize on it. "It was a very close match, he had his chances in the first set and I had mine in the second, it was very difficult," Lorenzi said. The Italian will play either top-seeded Tommy Haas of Germany or Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, who play their quarterfinal match later Friday. In the other quarterfinal Friday, Federico Delbonis of Argentina easily beat Alberto Montanes of Spain 6-4, 6-3 in just over an hour. He will play either home-crowd favourite Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil or Martin Klizan of Slovakia. The 61st-ranked Delbonis had upset three-time Brazil Open champion Almagro in the second round. Defending champion Rafael Nadal is not playing at the clay-court tournament this year. He chose to play at the first edition of the Rio Open, which he won last week. ___ Tales Azzoni on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tazzoni ' ' '
