Sharapova won her first four matches in an average of 59 minutes. Against Petrova, each of the first two sets took almost as long, and the match ran 2 1/2 hours before Sharapova, shrieking on nearly every point, ended it with a break in the final game on a lunging backhand return that Petrova couldn't handle.
"Wow! It's absolutely amazing, I can't believe I pulled this match out today," said Sharapova, who lost in the third round last year and the second round in her first U.S. Open two years ago. "So many ups and downs. ... I just found a way to fight. A lot of credit to Nadia, she played an amazing match.
"I thought it was too easy in the beginning. I was on fire. She wasn't playing that badly, I was just making winner after winner. All of a sudden, I just went out of the stadium and my mojo wasn't there. ... The last game I guess it just decided to come back."
September 7th, 2005
Posted by: Marco
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