March 29, 2011
Former world number one and current World No. 13 Maria Sharapova of Russia earned a hard-fought victory after three hour twenty nine minutes against the 26th seeded Romanian, Alexandra Dulgheru in three gruelling sets with a 3-6 7-66 7-65 in the quarter-final match that finished 20 minutes after midnight of Sony Ericsson Open at Miami, at the Crandon Park Florida on Tuesday night and not only reached the semi-final of the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open but also regained her position in Top 10 in WTA Rankings.
Sharapova was stretched to her limits in the contest by the Romanian, who was facing the 13th ranked Russian for the first time. Maria started well in the first set as she took a 3-1 lead but Dulgheru took 46 minutes to win the next 5 games to take the set 6-3 as she successfully converted 4 out of 8 break points and committed only 8 unforced errors as compared to 27 unforced errors from Sharapova. The 23-year-old Russian conceded plenty of unforced errors; including seven costly double faults which wore her out in the opening set.
The 2nd set was full of up's and down's for both players. As expected, Sharapova did broke early in the second-set, but failed to maintain the momentum and it reached the tie-breaker, Maria went up 6-1 and had 5 set-points and Dulgheru came back to level it 6-6. Maria composed herself and kept fighting and took the next 2 points to take the tie-break 8-6. The second-set was completed in 1 hour and 30 minutes.
An amazing display of high quality tennis was observed in the next set as the former world number one battled hard to remain alive in the contest. The two contestants stepped into the decider with the match evenly poised with one set a piece. Maria had a 4-2 lead in the third set. Sharapova uplifted her first serve accuracy to an impressive 78 per cent but still couldn’t control her double faults which mounted five in the set. Dulgheru remained brilliant with first serve, delivering 85 per cent on target and committing just one double fault, as compared to the Russian’s five. She struck three serve breaks but Sharapova replied with the same and broke to level and the set 5-5. In the next game, Maria had to have an injury time-out for an ankle injury, after treatment Maria held serve to lead 6-5 and then Dulgerhu held her own serve to force a final set tie-break. The Russian took down her opponent in the decider and concluded victory at 7-6(5) to move on to the round of four at Miami.
In the end, Sharapova hammered 37 winners, as compared to Dulgheru’s 15, which made all the difference. In the semis to be played on Thursday, Sharapova will play No.21 seed who take on giant killer Andrea Petkovic of Germany in the semi-final, who upset Jelena Jankovic 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 in straight sets to secure her berth in the semis. They have played twice before and the series is tied 1-1 - both meetings were on hardcourts.
|
Subscribe
