Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova weathered an untidy opening set to maintain her perfect start to the season at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells.

The fourth-seeded Russian swept aside Eleni Daniilidou of Greece 7-5 6-3 in a third-round encounter to record her 16th successive victory of the year.

"It was a very scratchy match from my side from the beginning," Sharapova said after beating Daniilidou for the sixth time in six career meetings.

"I was just not seeing the ball well, not moving that great. She doesn't quite give you a lot of rhythm, which I should pick up really fast, and I didn't do that well today.

"You know, I wasn't moving well throughout the first set. I was Grandpa Joe out there," the 20-year-old added with a smile.

"But it got better towards the end of the second set. I started seeing the ball better and moving in. I was just not moving in after my shots at all."

Sharapova, who won her third Grand Slam crown at the Australian Open in January before claiming her 18th WTA title in Doha the following month, knows very little about her next opponent, Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko.

"I can't say too much, because I've never played against her and I haven't watched too much of her on TV," the world number five said.

"When you're going against someone you've never played before, I think the best thing to do is try to figure her out early in the match in the first few games."

Meanwhile second-seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova battled to a 6-1 4-6 6-3 victory over Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova in the third round.

Kuznetsova came back from an error-prone second set to seal victory against Cibulkova in one hour, 48 minutes.

The world number three, who lost to another Slovakian, Daniela Hantuchova, in last year's final at Indian Wells, was relieved after booking her place in the fourth round of the women's draw at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

"I just stopped a little bit and lost my concentration," the Russian said of her slump midway through the match. "I had chances to break her straight, and I didn't do that.

"I have to figure out how to start playing better earlier after being 5-0 down in the second set. I didn't want to go to the third set 6-0 down so I changed that to give me the key to play better in the third."

Kuznetsova, initially dominating the baseline exchanges, cruised through the opening set after breaking her opponent in the second and sixth games.

However, the Russian inexplicably began to over-hit her groundstrokes and was broken in the second and fourth games of the second set to trail 0-5.

Although she mounted a fightback to close to 4-5, Cibulkova again broke in the 10th game to level the match.

Kuznetsova, a runner-up this year in Sydney and Dubai, upped her game in the third set to book a place in the next round against Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki.

The 17-year-old Dane, who won the 2006 Wimbledon junior title, brushed aside Aiko Nakamura of Japan 6-0 6-2 in 53 minutes.

Slovakian DanielaHantuchova, a double champion at Indian Wells, breezed through against China's Zheng Jie 6-4 6-2 in an evening match.

Reuters