Maria Sharapova advances into the final of the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open
The former world number one Russian Maria Sharapova trashed world number 23, German Andrea Petkovic by 3-6, 6-0, 6-2 in the semi-final match of the Sony Ericsson Open at Miami on Thursday night.
Both 23-year-old players have met each other twice before and with their head-to-head series levelled at 1-1. Petkovic won her last duel against the Russian in straight sets at the Australian Grand Slam but Sharapova displayed
top notch performance in this match as she bounced from a set down to reel off eleven games in a row to take the lead in their head to head series.
16th seeded Russian, who made a semi-final berth at Indian Wells before losing to eventual champion Caroline Wozniacki, reached the final at Miami for the third time. She was a back to back runner up in 2005 and 2006
at Key Biscayne.
21st seeded German is also in good shape as she reached the finals at Brisbane at the start of the season. She then made a quarter-final berth at Australian Open and Paris and entered this tournament confidently. She
upset the top seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki and 6th seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic in the previous rounds to reach this spot.
Petkovic made a shaky start as she lost her serve in the very first game but she quickly counterattacked as she cracks some study forehands by her rival and finally snatched the break back to level the score at 1-1. Later she held
her entire serves with her exquisite forehands and broke the Russian’s serve again in the sixth game to clinch the set with a 6-3 win.
The Russian re-formed her strategy in the second set and went on savage mode. She won six games in a row by hitting 12 winners and by saving all the four breakpoints. She also found eight breakpoint opportunities and converted
three to her advantage to win the equalizer flawlessly with a bagel.
Sharapova carried her rage mode into the decider set as she won the first five games in a row. Though she lost her serve later on but broke German’s serve for the third time in the eighth game to win the set with a 6-2 score line.
The raging Russian played her best tennis of her life and although she hit an equal number of winners and unforced errors of 23, she took full advantage of Petkovic’s 36 unforced errors. She clobbered eight double faults but converted
seven out of fourteen breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win the match convincingly.
"I had a tough one the other night and another three-setter today," Sharapova said, after winning against the German and retaining the top ten in the world rankings.
"Andrea has been playing the best tennis of her career and beat some good players here, so I was really happy I was able to change things around after losing the first set."
The Russian will next face either 8th seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka.
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