Auckland: Top seed Maria Sharapova's flirtation with the New Zealand public came to a premature end yesterday with a surprising 6-2 7-5 loss to unseeded Hungarian Greta Arn in the quarter-finals of the Auckland Classic.
The three times Grand Slam winner, who had chosen to warm up for the Australian Open by entering the Auckland tournament rather than her normal schedule of playing exhibition matches, struggled with her rhythm in the swirling wind yesterday.
She was broken twice in the first set by the 31-year-old Arn and made numerous unforced errors in the second to crash out in a match lasting 91 minutes.
"I started off really slow, got down two breaks and I think she gained a tremendous amount of confidence from that," Sharapova told reporters.
"I had my chances in the second [set], but I didn't play the same way I had played to get there.
"Obviously I would have loved to play a few more here and be the winner. But that's the way it goes. You look forward to the next one. That's the good thing about tennis."
Arn will now meet the winner of the last quarter-final between fourth seed Julia Goerges and Kateryna Bondarenko.
Sharapova's presence had helped effectively sell-out the tournament by the first day and her defeat disappointed those hoping for a final against champion and second seed Yanina Wickmayer.
Wickmayer had earlier made sure of her place in the semi-finals when she beat Romania's Simona Halep 6-0 6-2 in a little over an hour in the first match on centre court and set up a showdown with China's Peng Shuai. "I feel very happy, this is the first week of the year and I'm really happy to be playing well," said Wickmayer.
RESULTS
Auckland Open (quarter-finals, prefix number denotes seeding):
4-Julia Goerges (Germany) beat Kateryna Bondarenko (Ukraine) 5-7 6-2 6-2; Peng Shuai (China) beat Heather Watson (Britain) 6-4 7-5; Greta Arn (Hungary) beat 1-Maria Sharapova (Russia) 6-2 7-5; 2-Yanina Wickmayer (Belgium) beat Simona Halep (Romania) 6-0 6-2
Qatar Open: 4-Nikolay Davydenko beat Jarkko Nieminen 6-4 7-5; 1-Rafa Nadal beat Lukas Lacko 7-6(3) 0-6 6-3; 2-Roger Federer beat Marco Chiudinelli 7-6(5) 7-5; Ivo Karlovic beat 8-Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-6(5) 6-7(4) 7-6(2); 5-Ernests Gulbis beat Antonio Veic 6-3 6-1; 7-Guillermo Garcia-Lopez beat Illya Marchenko 6-1 6-4; 3-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat Sergey Bubka Jr. 6-2 6-4; 6-Viktor Troicki beat Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-3 6-1
Brisbane International (x denotes seeding): Men (quarter-finals): 2-Andy Roddick (US) beat 5-Marcos Baghdatis (Cyprus) 6-2 6-3; Kevin Anderson (South Africa) beat Santiago Giraldo (Colombia) 2-6 6-3 6-4.
Second round: 1-Robin Soderling (Sweden) beat Michael Berrer (Germany) 6-3 7-6(7); Matthew Ebden (Australia) beat 8-Denis Istomin (Uzbekistan) 6-4 6-4 .
Women (quarter-finals): Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic) beat Dominika Cibulkova (Slovakia) 6-0 6-4; 4-Marion Bartoli
(France) beat Barbora Zahlavova Strycova (Czech Republic) 6-2 6-1.
ATP Chennai Open (second round, x denotes seeding):
Tomas Berdych (CZE x1) bt Ivan Dodig (CRO) 6-2, 6-4; Bjorn Phau (GER) bt Richard Gasquet (FRA x4) 1-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/4); Blaz Kavcic (SLO) bt Robert Kendrick (USA) 6-2, 6-2; Xavier Malisse (BEL x7) bt Stephane Robert (FRA) 6-2, 6-2.
