CLIJSTERS ADVANCES FORMER JPMORGAN CHAMP WINS IN STRAIGHT SETS.

Byline: Matthew Kredell Staff Writer

The last time Kim Clijsters played at the JPMorgan Chase Open, she passed around chocolate cake to celebrate her tournament victory and resulting ascension to the No. 1 ranking in the world.

Clijsters was more subdued Wednesday, though she recaptured some of her Home Depot Center magic in a 6-2, 6-1 win over Karolina Sprem of Croatia.

``It's always nice to come back to places where you have special memories,'' said Clijsters, who is from Belgium. ``It was fun and exciting to play a night match again and walk out on center court.''

Because she battled injuries much of last season, including missing herchance to defend the JPMorgan title because of an injured left wrist, Clijsters has dropped to No. 10 in the rankings.

However, as she showed again Wednesday, she is back to playing some of the best tennis in the world. Clijsters has two tournament titles in the past seven weeks, including a victory over Wimbledon champion Venus Williams two weeks ago in the final at Stanford.

Down 40-15, though up 3-0 in the second set on Sprem's serve, Clijsters wouldn't give up on a game. She won four points in a row and put the match away with another break.

Meanwhile, second-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia became the first high seed to be upset, losing the late match 6-4, 6-4 to Eleni Danilidou of Greece.

Kuznetsova, who won last year's U.S. Open but has not won a tournament since September, twice broke to take leads in the second set but gave them right back on her next service game. She had another opportunity to break and then serve for the set up 4-3 and 40-0 but dropped five consecutive points. Danilidou then broke Kuznetsova for the fourth time and served an ace to close out the match.

``I couldn't get my game going,'' Kuznetsova said. ``Just horrible. I don't know what's the reason but if I keep playing like this I might as well go home straight away because I'm not going to win a match like this. I'm just very upset with my game. I need to change something but I don't know what.''

Seeded Russians Elena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova also had scares early in their matches before settling in for strong finishes.

The final scores were misleading, with Dementieva beating Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-4, 6-3 and Petrova beating Jill Craybas 6-3, 6-1. Both players were broken early. Dementieva was down 3-1 and 0-40 on Stosur's serve when she came alive and rallied to win the game.

``I didn't want to go three sets because it was so hot,'' Dementieva said. ``So I started going for winners and it worked out.''

Petrova admitted she lacked confidence entering the match because she injured her left elbow before last week's tournament in Carlsbad and was upset by a qualifier in the second round.

Against Craybas, she lost her first service game and trailed 0-2 beforewinning 12 of the last 14 games.

``I had an idea inside my head how I wanted to play but couldn't bring it out,'' Petrova said. ``I was a little unsure of myself. After I lost the service game and another game, I started focusing and taking one point at a time.''

Matthew Kredell, [phone]

matthew.kredell(at)dailynews.com

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Former JPMorgan Chase Open champ Kim Clijsters defeated Karolina Sprem in straight sets Wednesday.

Chris Carlson/Associated Press