Maria Sharapova loses to Dominika Cibulkova; crashes out of the Mutua Madrid Open
The crowd at Park Manzanares in Madrid, Spain, was in for a major upset as former world number one, Maria Sharapova of Russia got beaten by the 28th ranked Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in the third round of the Mutua
Madrid Open. The unseeded Slovak laboured hard for one hour and forty six minutes before she ousted the reigning world number nine in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4, to book a place in the quarter-finals of the $4,500,000 WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) tournament.
The Slovakian continued her brilliant form against Sharapova, defeating the eight seeded Russian for a second consecutive time. Their last encounter was at the quarter-final of the French Open, where Sharapova suffered a humiliating
6-0, 6-2 defeat at the hands of Cibulkova. The Slovak registered her 15th victory of the running WTA season at Madrid and levelled her head-to-head series against Sharapova to 2-2.
Although Cibulkova won the contest in straight sets, Sharapova made her pay for it. The Slovak attained commanding position in the game on many occasions but had to toil very hard to close out both sets. She amazingly crafted 17
opportunities to break the Russian’s serve and converted merely seven out of them en route to victory.
“It’s never easy to play against Maria because she’s a great player and a great fighter. It was not easy to finish this match today,” Cibulkova commented after winning the match.
Sharapova had fewer chances to take down her opponent and she made the most of them to give the Slovak a tough time. The Russian converted five of her seven break chances and delivered 75 per cent of her first serve on target,
still ending on the losing side.
The action packed opener took almost one hour for completion as a total of seven serve breaks were seen in it. Cibulkova was off to a flyer and a couple of break points took her to a substantial lead of 5-3. The eighth seeded Russian
came from behind and clinched two straight games to level the scores at 5-5 but her momentum was broken by the fourth serve break from her opponent, sealing the first set at 7-5.
Cibulkova carried on her flow in the next set, winning the opening four games to lead 4-0. Sharapova showed tremendous courage to reel off the next four games, levelling the scores at 4-all. However, the Slovak stood focused and
nabbed the following two games to accomplish victory.
In the quarter-final clash of the Mutua Madrid Open, Cibulkova will face off against the 16 seeded Czech, Petra Kvitova, who upset world number three, Vera Zvonareva in the third round.
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