Shikha Uberoi advanced to the second round of the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, on Thursday night, beating Japan's [ Images ] Akiko Morigami.

Uberoi maintained her stupendous form that had seen her come through the tough qualifying rounds of the 2.1 million-dollar event sanctioned by both the ATP and WTA Tours to thrash world no. 81 Morigami 6-4, 7-5 in the first round encounter.

Uberoi, ranked 147, next faces 27th seed and world number 41 Meghan Shaughnessy of the US.

Uberoi had earlier beat another Japanese, Saori Obata 6-3, 6-1, and Russia's [ Images ] 146th ranked Ekaterina Bychkova 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 in the qualifiers.

The Indian Wells event is a Tier-1 event and includes the world's top-ranked players including world number one Lindsay Davenport [ Images ], Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo [ Images ], Russia's Wimbledon [ Images ] champion Maria Sharapova [ Images ] and Elena Dementieva [ Images ].