Maria Sharapova rallies past Nadia Petrova to reach the quarter-final – US Open 2012
World number three, Maria Sharapova, dropped the first set at the US Open Championship in New York in a battle against the 22nd ranked compatriot, Nadia Petrova, who couldn’t hold her nerves in the final battle and lost
the fourth round match 1-6, 6-4, 4-6.
Sharapova commented afterwards, "I have the experience to get off the court, wait a little bit and just try to start from scratch. You have a rain delay and you come back, and the people waited through 45 minutes to watch the end
of the match. The energy in the stadium, the music and the cheering, it's just unique. It pumped me up. I wasn't going to leave that court without a fight. "That's pretty much the mentality I try to have going into a third set. It was a great win for her today,
beating someone who has been playing really well this summer,"
Former world number one, Sharapova, bagged the opening game after a bit of early pressure from her rival. She continued to impress and drowned her compatriot to the trail of two games after winning the first breakpoint of the match
and pushing the scores to 3-1.
A serve hold to love helped the Russian blonde to extend her lead to 4-1 before the second breakpoint was won by her but not before Petrova saved a couple of them. Things looked flowery for the third seed Russian who bagged the
final serve game to round off the first set.
The 30-year-old Russian started the second set in emphatic fashion; grabbed an early breakthrough after an easy serve hold and pushed the scores to 2-0. She looked to take the match to its length and bagged another breakpoint to
make it 4-0.
Sharapova fought back with successive breakpoints and levelled the scores to 4-4. However, the turnaround from the third seed was not good enough as her veteran compatriot bagged another breakpoint in the 10th game to
win the second set.
Both players swapped breakpoints at the start of the final set. However, the decisive breakthrough went in favour of Sharapova who confirmed her date with the French star, Marion Bartoli.
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