Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova rallied to defeat Ukranian Alona Bondarenko 6-7 (9/11), 6-3, 6-2 on Friday in the quarter-finals at the WTA Bausch and Lomb Championship.
Top seed Sharapova advanced to a semi-final at the US$600,000 clay court event against US veteran Lindsay Davenport, who eliminated Hungarian eighth seed Agnes Szavay 6-4, 7-6 (7/3).
Sharapova, who turns 21 on April 19, has never reached a clay court final in her career, but would with a victory in the semi that would also give her a chance to play for the US$95,500 top prize.
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French teen Alize Cornet, ranked 49th in the world, beat 27th-ranked compatriot Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 to book a spot in the other semi-final against Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, who defeated 2001 winner Amelie Mauresmo of France 6-1, 7-6 (8/6).
Davenport has lost five of six matches against Sharapova, most recently at Melbourne where Sharapova defeated the new mum 6-1, 6-3 on the way to her third major title.
Sharapova improved to 21-1 on the season despite squandering three set points in the opening set tie-breaker, eventually surrendering the set by netting a forehand, her 27th unforced error.
Bondarenko, who broke Sharapova in the second game of the match, could not the close the upset, however.
Sharapova smacked a forehand winner to claim the second set and broke Bondarenko in the third and fifth games of the final set on her way to a 5-1 lead, before closing out the match with a service winner.
Bondarenko dropped her only previous match against Sharapova in three sets last month at Indian Wells.
Sharapova skipped the previous event in Miami after complaining of fatigue following a semi-final loss at Indian Wells to Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova that ended an 18-match winning streak.
Sharapova calls the clay surface her biggest challenge and said she is working as much to prepare for the French Open next month as she is to win another title.
“I would have loved to have finished this match off as quickly as I can. But I’m here to learn,” Sharapova said.
“I want to get as many matches in as I can before the French,” she said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB