Associated Press
Vera Zvonareva returns a shot to Maria Sharapova during fourth-round play Tuesday at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells. Zvonareva won the match 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
|
INDIAN WELLS – She had many imitators here last week, but the one person who never resembled Maria Sharapova as she can be on a tennis court was Sharapova herself.
“It was one of those days when it just didn't happen,” Sharapova said yesterday after Vera Zvonareva of Russia had dismissed her 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 in the round of 16 of the Pacific Life Open.
Correction. It was one of those weeks. At no time during her three appearances at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden did Sharapova perform at the level that made her the current U.S. Open champion and the tournament's defending titlist. So she is gone. The Maria Sharapova look-alikes, oddly, are still around and planning to fulfill scheduled appearances this weekend.
Sharapova's failure means Justine Henin of Belgium, twice a tournament winner recently in the Middle East, is to supplant her as the No. 1 ranked player on the WTA Tour. In order to retain this ranking, Sharapova had to gain the semifinals of the Pacific Life Open. She fell a couple of rounds short.
The women's phase of the tournament, meantime, experienced an upheaval rivaling the one that blighted the men's portion of it when Roger Federer was a second-round loser. In addition to Sharapova, swept away last night were the Nos. 3 and 4 seeds, Martina Hingis and Nadia Petrova.
Daniela Hantuchova, then 18 and little known outside her native Serbia, outplayed Hingis in the 2002 final here 6-3, 6-4. Five years later, the reed-thin Hantuchova again outmaneuvered Hingis by nearly identical scores. This time it was 6-4, 6-3. Petrova retired, citing an inability to deal with the heat, with Tatiana Golovin advancing 6-1, 1-0 ret.
Zvonareva can be remembered in the San Diego area for how she expressed her pique while Anastasia Myskina was outlasting her 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (17-15) during the semifinals of the 2004 Acura Classic. In moments when she was displeased, she would bombard the clubhouse at the La Costa Resort & Spa with tennis balls.
Yesterday, though, Zvonareva kept her cool. After losing the first set, she had a run in which she swept eight straight games, the last four of the second set and the first four of the third, in claiming her third victory in seven matches against Sharapova, her conqueror at this year's Australian Open.
Sharapova's trials were most apparent when she was serving at 5-6 in the second set with an opportunity to send the set to a tiebreaker. In this game, she double faulted three times, including on the point that delivered the set to Zvonareva.
In all, Sharapova had 14 double faults and 44 errors to 30 winners. Zvonareva, a big hitter, had 12 fewer errors than her opponent. Said Sharapova of Zvonareva:
“You try to improve, but sometimes you run into somebody who is a great competitor and enters many tournaments a year. You can't underestimate her. She is on a decent path.”
Zvonareva's course here has delivered her into a quarterfinal test against Na Li of China. The first woman from her country to be ranked in the top 20, Li, currently No. 17, stopped No. 7 seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia 6-3, 7-6 (7-1).
In addition to the Zvonareva-Li match, the quarterfinal pairings are Hantuchova vs. Shahar Peer, Sybille Bammer vs. Golovin, and Nicole Vaidisova vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Peer stopped Anna Chakvetadze of Russia 6-4, 7-6 (7-2). Bammer, an Austrian seeded No. 33, took out No. 10 seed Ana Ivanovic 6-7 (6-8), 6-0, 6-3. Vaidisova felled Marion Bartoli 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Jerry Magee: (619) 293-1830; jerry.magee@uniontrib.com
