Russia's Maria Sharapova returns a ball to Slovenia's Katarina Srebotnik during their semifinal match at the Zurich Open WTA tennis tournament in the Hallenstadion in Zurich, Switzerland, Saturday, October 21, 2006.
Photo: AP
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Sharapova Wins Zurich Trophy
Russia's Maria Sharapova finally overwhelmed Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova in a tough final match at the WTA Zurich Open tennis tournament at the Hallenstadion in Zurich, October 22, 2006. The victory improved Maria’s chances to become world’s number one in the tennis.
It looks like Maria Sharapova plays brilliantly anywhere but for the Moscow Kremlin Cup, where she had lost in the quarterfinals in 2005 and withdrew on the leg injury just ten days ago.
But the injury didn’t prevent Sharapova to register for the Zurich Open, which, similar to the Kremlin Cup, is a tournament of the first category, and to play to victory there.
Sharapova was the obvious favorite of the Sunday final in Zurich. Her ranking is much higher than the ranking of the Slovak player and she had beaten Hantuchova in four of their six head-to-head matches before the Sunday triumph.
Nevertheless, the match lasted more than two hours yesterday. At the beginning, Sharapova dominated over excited Hantuchova to the extent that the latter took just a game in the first set. But the Slovak player recovered in the second set, avoided silly mistakes and broke to level the score.
Maria accelerated in the decider to win her first Zurich Open trophy (6-1 4-6 6-3), which became her fourth victory this season and the 14th one in career. The title improved the chances of Sharapova (who is the last of the leading trio today) in the race for the top rating. So far, Maria is more than 600 scores behind Amelie Mauresmo and trails Justine Henin-Hardenne roughly 150 scores.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 23, 2006
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