Wimbledon champion and fourth seed Maria Sharapova overcame a slow start to battle past Italian Silvia Farina Elia 4-6 6-1 6-2 on Sunday to reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open for the first time.
Maria will now play compatriot and fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova after the U.S. Open champion held off another Russian in Vera Douchevina 6-4 6-2.
View pictures of today's match
Sharapova appeared out of sorts against an opponent almost twice her age but grew in confidence and finally managed to close out the match against 15th seed Farina Elia after two hours and 13 minutes on Melbourne Park's Vodafone Arena.
She lost a tight struggle in the first set and then handed the 32-year-old Italian a service break at the start of the second in a surprisingly meek display.
However, the Russian started to find her range with her groundstrokes to break Farina Elia three times in the second set.
Maria then battled through an untidy third set littered with six service breaks before she finally prevailed.
But it was an unconvincing display, with Sharapova hitting 37 unforced errors to Farina Elia's 28.
January 23rd, 2005
Posted by: Marco
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