Maria
Sharapova followed Serena Williams out of the Australian Open after the
second fourth-round upset in 24 hours.Third-seeded Sharapova lost 3-6,
6-4, 6-1 to Dominika Cibulkova on Monday, struggling with her serve in
the second and third sets and making 45 unforced errors as she tried to
claw her way back.Her serve started to backfire from the eighth game,
when she was broken at love while trying to serve out the first
set.Maria Sharapova had been resilient but shaky in her first three
Australian Open matches, but those mistakes caught up to her against
Dominika Cibulkova on Monday,Custom LOL cute Q version design pure cotton long sleeve T-shirt Melissa
Isaacson writes. During a run of four breaks against her, Sharapova won
only three points on her own serve and fell 5-0 behind in the second
set.The four-time major winner rallied to win four straight games before
Cibulkova held to level the match. After taking an off-court medical
time out after the second set for a hip strain, she was broken
immediately and had seven double-faults in the third set.Sharapova was
two tournaments into a comeback from a prolonged layoff with a right
shoulder injury, and said her run to the fourth round was a positive
sign because she was healthy and back on tour."I have to look at the
positives and see where I have come from in four or five months. I
haven't played a lot of tennis in those six months," said Sharapova,Long Sleeve T-Shirts who
won the Australian title in 2008 and lost two other finals."So I
certainly would have loved to play a little bit more before playing a
Grand Slam, but this is the chance that I was given."
Top-ranked
Williams, a five-time Australian Open champion, was knocked out in a
three-set loss to 14th-seeded Ana Ivanovic on Sunday, and later revealed
she had a back problem that had her considering withdrawing from the
tournament.The absence of two of the biggest stars in women's tennis
opens up the draw for two-time defending champion Victoria Azarenka, who
was playing No.paper honeycomb 13-seeded Sloane Stephens later Monday.Sharapova made it hard for herself in Australia,Custom Riven fashion design pure cotton hoody with a zipperBuy Smiling Face Handbag(AAA) wholesale,
Custom Fit Stripe Shirt and more. having difficulty closing out her
second- and third-round matches. She needed almost 3? hours to beat
Karin Knapp in searing heat the second round -- playing 50 minutes
between her first and final match points. She said she couldn't use the
heat wave as an excuse for her loss, and added that the hip strain
wasn't anything out of the ordinary for a tennis player.Cibulkova had
spent just over 3? hours on court in her first three wins, including a
6-1, 6-0 win over No. 16 Carla Suarez Navarro in the third round.The
pair hadn't played since Sharapova's quarterfinal win at Wimbledon in
2011. Now they're evenly split in six head-to-heads, but Cibulkova has
won two of their three matches at the majors with her win Monday and her
quarterfinal victory at the 2009 French Open.Cibulkova raced to a 5-0
lead in the second set before tightening up and letting Sharapova back
into the match. She was more steady in the third, when she didn't even
face a break point."I was never doubting myself," the No. 20-seeded
Cibulkova said, adding that Ivanovic's win over Williams the previous
day had been motivational but not her main inspiration against
Sharapova."It was a great match for Ana. But this was a different story.
I already beat Maria before and I beat her" at a major.
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