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Zheng ousts No. 1 Safina in 3 sets; Sharapova advances
Safina's defeat left second-seeded Vera Zvonareva in good position to win the title, althought the Russian was forced to struggle past Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-4. Zvonareva's opponent in the last eight will be Italian tenth seed Flavia Pennetta, who beat Russian fifth-seed Nadia Petrova 6-3, 6-3. Zheng declared her win over Safina as “amazing.”
Safina, the defending tournament champion and runner-up at the Australian and French opens this year, is in her 16th consecutive week as the world's top-ranked women's player, but hardly looked the world's best on Thursday. The Russian struggled with her serve and numerous unforced errors. Safina netted a backhand on match point after being broken at love in the previous game.
“I turned the match around with a break in the third set and I started to play much better and I just didn't use my opportunities,” Safina said. “I didn't do the right things.” Zheng, ranked 23rd in the world, has won three career titles on the WTA Tour, but none since 2006. She is best known for reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon last year, the first Chinese player to do so.
In the third set, Safina was up a break before double faulting to bring it back on serve at 4-3. Zheng held for 4-4 and then needed just eight points over the final two games to close out her second career victory over a top-ranked player. She beat Ivanovic in the third round at Wimbledon last year.
Earlier, Maria Sharapova rallied for a 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 win over Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko, avenging a 6-2, 6-2 loss in May when the Russian rejoined the tour after a seven-month layoff because of a right shoulder injury.
Stosur broke Ivanovic's serve in the eighth game of the opening set and three times in the second set. Ivanovic struggled with her ball toss on serve throughout the match and said Stosur was “putting a lot of pressure on my serve. That was the big difference today because once we got into rallies it was pretty close.”
Stosur, a grand slam-winning doubles player, has not won a WTA Tour singles title but been a finalist four times. She reached the semifinals of the French Open this year and and last week was a semifinalist at Stanford, where she beat Serena Williams.
Stosur called the match with Ivanovic “a benchmark to see how quickly you can turn things around” after the loss at Wimbledon. Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, the No. 8 seed, ousted Anna Chakvetadze of Russia 6-3, 6-2, and was joined in the quarterfinals by younger sister Urszula Radwanska, who advanced when No. 12 seed Li Na of China withdrew because of a right ankle injury.
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