By Mark Lamport-Stokes
INDIAN WELLS, California, March 12 (Reuters) – U.S.
Open champion Sam Stosur of Australia made a premature exit at
the Indian Wells WTA tournament with a see-sawing 6-1 6-7 7-6
loss to Russian Nadia Petrova in the third round on Monday.
Sixth-seeded Stosur was broken when serving for the match at
6-5 in the third set and the Russian capitalised by holding her
serve and sealing a hard-fought victory 7-5 in the tiebreak.
The Australian had been swept aside by big-serving Petrova
in the opening set and then saved one match point in the second
set tiebreak before clawing her way back to level the match.
Petrova, beaten 7-6 6-7 7-5 by Stosur at last year’s U.S.
Open in the tournament’s longest women’s match of the tie-break
era, squealed with delight after the Australian pushed a
forehand wide to end an encounter lasting nearly three hours.
“I am very excited to be back,” a beaming Petrova said in a
courtside interview at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. “This is
only my third win of the year and you could see it when I was
just about to close the match. I was a bit tentative.
“My serve was working incredibly (well) until the end of the
second set,” added the Russian, who fired down 15 aces in the
match. “At the end, it was just spot on.”
Petrova, who raised both arms skywards to celebrate her
fifth successive appearance in the fourth round at Indian Wells,
will next meet either fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko or Spaniard
Lourdes Dominguez Lino.
In other matches on Monday, seventh-seeded Frenchwoman
Marion Bartoli swept aside South African Chanelle Scheepers 6-2
6-0 and Italy’s Roberta Vinci battled past Slovakian Dominika
Cibulkova 6-7 6-0 6-4.
Continued…
