* Petrova avenges U.S. Open loss to Stosur
* Bartoli, Kirilenko also advance
(Updates with later matches)
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 the 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.
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 after
beating Stosur for the fifth time in seven meetings.
“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.
Continued…
