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AMELIA ISLAND, Florida: Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova
rallied to defeat Ukranian Alona Bondarenko 6-7 (9-11), 6-3, 6-2 in
a Friday quarterfinal at the WTA Bausch and Lomb Championship.
Top seed Sharapova advanced to a Saturday
semifinal at the $600,000 clay court event against US veteran
Lindsay Davenport, who eliminated Hungarian eighth seed Agnes Szavay
6-4, 7-6 (7-3).
Russian beauty Sharapova, who turns 21 on April
19, has never reached a clay court final in her career but would
with a victory Saturday that would also give her a chance to play
for the $95,500 top prize.
Davenport has lost five of six matches against
Sharapova, most recently at Melbourne where Sharapova defeated the
new mum 6-1, 6-3 on the way to her third major title.
Sharapova improved to 21-1 on the season despite
squandering three set points in the opening-set tie-breaker,
eventually surrendering the set by netting a forehand, her 27th
unforced error.
“Considering a couple of those set points I
had, it should have been over in two sets,” Sharapova said. “I
was really tentative when I had those set points. Somehow, I
scrambled my way out of it in the second. She looked like she was
getting a little tired.”
Bondarenko, who broke Shara-pova in the second
game of the match, could not the close the upset, however.
Sharapova smacked a forehand winner to claim the
second set and broke Bondarenko in the third and fifth games of the
final set on her way to a 5-1 lead before closing out the match with
a service winner.
Bondarenko dropped her only previous match
against Sharapova in three sets last month at Indian Wells.
Sharapova skipped the previous event in Miami
after complaining of fatigue following a semifinal loss at Indian
Wells to Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova that ended an 18-match winning
streak.
Davenport, 31, has won two titles in 2008 and
enters the quarterfinals with a 20-4 record this year. She seeks her
fourth Amelia Island crown after crowns in 1997, 2004 and 2005. She
has a 33-5 record here with seven semifinal trips.
French teen Alize Cornet, ranked 49th in the
world, beat 27th-ranked compatriot Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 in
another quarterfinal.
Cornet, 18, will next face the winner of Friday
night’s match between 2001 winner Amelie Mauresmo of France and
Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova.
-- AFP
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