Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova had to call upon all her reserves to beat Colombia's Fabiola Zuluaga 4-6 6-2 7-5 in the fourth round of the Pacific Life Open.
The world number three appeared to be cruising when 5-2 up in the third set, before the scrappy Zuluaga forced Sharapova into numerous errors, forcing her to use five match points to win the nearly two hour contest.
"It was a big battle out there," said Sharapova, who will meet Mary Pierce of France in the quaters.
"I basically committed suicide when I had those four match points, especially when I came into the net and stayed in the middle.
"When you're not playing your best tennis, those are the matches where you finish, win or lose.
"But it's good to get through them, because I feel whenever I don't play that well, then the next day I come out and I do better and better."
Sharapova said she had briefly flashbacked to her semi-final loss to Serena Williams at the Australian Open, where she squandered three match points.
"It comes back in your mind," said Sharapova.
"Like you had four match points before and you're up 5-2, you were playing so good and all of a sudden either she picked up her game or you just started going downhill.
"But it's good to learn. I was frustrated when I got back to five-all, but then I pulled it together."
March 16th, 2005
Posted by: Marco
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