Underdogs rule Day Five
CROATIAN STAR LUCIC- BARONI ENDS 15- YEAR- OLD AGONY
New York, Aug. 30: World number two Simona Halep and two- time champion Venus Williams tumbled out of the US Open on Friday, but Maria Sharapova bucked the upset trend that rocked the women’s draw.
Croatian Mirjana LucicBaroni shocked secondseeded Halep 7- 6 ( 8/ 6), 6- 2.
The reward for the 121stranked Lucic- Baroni is a fourth- round meeting with Italian Sara Errani, who thwarted Williams 60, 0- 6, 7- 6 ( 7/ 5).
Swiss Belinda Bencic toppled German Angelique Kerber 6- 1, 7- 5.
Bencic earned a meeting with Jelena Jankovic, a 61, 6- 0 winner over Swede Johanna Larsson.
After dropping the lopsided first set, Kerber appeared poised to knot the match, but she couldn’t convert three set points. Bencic seized her chance.
The last Grand Slam of the year has now lost four of its top 10 women’s seeds, after the secondround departures of Agnieszka Radwanska and Ana Ivanovic.
Errani’s triumph over 19th- seeded Williams wasn’t strictly speaking an upset, but the Italian had to dig deep to beat the American.
“I know that was a really tough match, even if I won the first set 6- 0 she’s an amazing player,” Errani said.
And as she expected, Williams battled back, racing through the second set to set up a third that turned into a slugfest.
Williams twice came back from a break down in the third, then broke Errani to serve for the match at 5- 3.
She couldn’t hang on, however, surrendering her serve as they battled to the tiebreaker, in which Errani took a 5- 2 lead only for Williams to battle back to 5- 5 before at last succumbing.
Sharapova also found herself in a power strug- New York, Aug. 30: Mirjana Lucic- Baroni, once one of tennis’ hottest talents before being engulfed by heartbreaking personal trauma, reached her first Grand Slam last- 16 in 15 years on Friday, describing it as the best day of her life.
Now 32 years old, LucicBaroni had the world at her feet when she was a teenager.
In 1997, she made her US Open debut at just 15 and at the same age, she teamed with Martina Hingis to win the 1998 Australian Open women’s doubles.
In 1999, she went to the Wimbledon semi- finals where it took Steffi Graf to beat her.
But always in the background was tough, demanding father Marinko who, Lucic- Baroni later revealed, dished out regular beatings although he described them as “slaps” that were “best for the child”.
Eventually, in desperation, Mirjana, her mother Andelka and four siblings fled their Croatia home in the dead of night for the sanctuary of the United States.
The drama put the brakes on her journey as severe financial problems left her career in cold storage. gle, but emerged with a 62, 6- 4 victory over German Sabine Lisicki.
China’s Peng Shuai dispatched another seeded player in Roberta Vinci 64, 6- 3. She set up a meeting with Czech Lucie Safarova, a 6- 3, 6- 7 ( 5/ 7), 64 winner over France’s Alize Cornet Among the men, Roger Federer found a way past the booming serve of Sam Groth in a 6- 4, 6- 4, 6- 4 second round victory over the Australian.
Fourth- seeded David Ferrer reached the third round without lifting his racquet when unpredictable Aussie Bernard Tomic withdrew with a hip injury.. PAES- STEPANEK IN 2ND ROUND Leander Paes and Czech partner Radek Stepanek entered the men’s doubles pre- quarter- finals with a 7- 6 ( 3), 6- 3 second round victory over Chinese Taipei's Yen Hsun- Lu and Czech Republic's Jiri Vesley.