Maria Sharapova cruises to third round of the Sony Ericsson Open
16th seeded Russian Maria Sharapova downed 20-year-old Croat Petra Martic in straight sets to advance to the third round at the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open on Thursday. She earned a 6-3, 6-2 victory over the Croat.
The former world number one displayed exceptional skills on the hard courts at Crandon Park in Miami by trashing the world number 106 Croat out of this WTA Premier event in straight sets. Sharapova, who is in her top form and reached
the semi-finals at Indian Wells before losing to eventual champion and the world number one Caroline Wozniacki, completely outclassed the Croatian wild card entrant throughout the match.
Though the 23-year-old Sharapova committed three double faults and had a slightly lower first serve share of 48 percent as compared to Croatian’s 50 percent in the opening set, she registered an amazing 92 percent win on it. She
held her entire serves spectacularly and converted the only breakpoint opportunity to her advantage to win the set with a 6-3 score line.
Sharapova carried her winning momentum in the second set and held her opening serve. Though she double faulted two times, she had a slightly higher first serve share in this set and registered a convincing 63 percent win on it.
Furthermore she saved one out of two breakpoints and converted three out of five breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to clinch the set with a 6-2 win.
The Croatian had a convincing statistics throughout the match committed less double faults than Sharapova, but she didn’t took any advantage on it and saved only two out of six breakpoints. Martic showed her great form at Bogota
earlier this season where she reached the semi-finals but was forced to retire due to injury but in this event she showed no spark.
Sharapova faced Martic for the first time and took the lead in their head to head series by 1-0 after dumping the Croat out of the tournament.
World number 13, Sharapova will next face German wild card entrant Sabine Lisicki.
Ranked 217th in the world, Lisicki reached this spot after upsetting 18th seeded Russian Nadia Petrova. The German was leading in the third round when Petrova was forced to retire and Lisicki eventually advanced
to the third round.
Sharapova can easily overcome the German with her current form and advance far in the tournament.
The top seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki also cruised to the third round in a late night match after trashing the world number 43, American Bethanie Mattek Sand by a 6-2, 7-5 victory in 84 minutes. The world number one converted
five out of eight breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win the match convincingly.
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