stosur shock for henin
Samantha Stosur of Australia stunned four-times former winner Justine Henin at the French Open on Monday to wreck hopes of a dream quarter-final between the Belgian and top seed Serena Williams.
It was the first time that Henin had lost since the second round in 2004, a 24-match unbeaten run that was the third best on record and it put a spoke in the comeback trail she has been blazing since the start of the year.
It was also the second straight year that the fast-rising Gold Coast resident Stosur has reached the last eight in Paris, having lost in last year’s semis to eventual winner Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia.
In sharp contrast to the Henin-Stosur thriller, which the Australian won 2-6, 6-1, 6-4, Williams breezed past Shahar Peer of Israel 6-2, 6-2.
Williams insisted she was not shocked by Henin’s dismissal. “She is no pushover,” she said of Stosur. “She has beaten me before and I shall have to play my best game,” she said. “You can never underestimate anyone and Sam is a wonderful claycourt player.”
In the men’s singles, four-time champion Rafael Nadal clinched his 200th claycourt win to move into the quarter-finals, but only after undergoing a tough examination by Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci.
Second seed Nadal claimed a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 win over gutsy 24th seed Bellucci and will face either Fernando Verdasco or Nicolas Almagro for a place in the semi-finals.
Novak Djokovic, scheduled to face Nadal in the last four, also reached the quarter-finals and is convinced that the confident way he swept past Robby Ginepri makes him a threat both to the Spaniard and champion Roger Federer.
The third seeded Serbian saw off Ginepri 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, reeling off 12 of the last 15 games, and will now face Jurgen Melzer, who ended Russian qualifier Teimuraz Gabashvili’s run with a 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win.
Fourth-seeded Andy Murray of Britain was left frustrated by the playing conditions on a rainy middle Sunday as he was beaten 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 by Tomas Berdych in the fourth round.
Melzer, the oldest man left in the draw at 29, became the first Austrian to make the last eight since former champion Thomas Muster in 1998. “With the kind of game I performed in the third and fourth sets, I think I have a good chance against anybody on the court now,” insisted 23-year-old Djokovic, a semi-finalist in 2007 and 2008.
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Paes, Black in quarters
Paris, May 31: Leander Paes and his partner Cara Black advanced to the quarterfinals of the French Open mixed doubles event after a hard-fought victory in the super tie-breaker over Su-Wei Hsieh and Bruno Soares here on Monday. The second seeded Indo-Zimbabwe pair beat the unseeded Chinese Taipei-Brazilian duo of Hsieh and Soares 7-5, 2-6, 1-0 (10/8) in a second round match which lasted 111 minutes and spread over two days. — PTI
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