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Saturday, Jan 05, 2008
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Sharapova enters final

S.V. Sriram

— Photo: AFP

IN CONTROL: Maria Sharapova scored a comfortable win over Anna Chakvetadze in the semifinals of the J.B. Group Classic.

Hong Kong: Come Saturday evening and Maria Sharapova will be hoping that the first weekend of the new year this time around would be a harbinger of good news for her. A two-time finalist here, Maria Sharapova entered her third on Friday evening and second consecutive final after 2007, when she defeated fellow Russian Anna Chakvetadze 6-4, 6-2 in the JB Group Classic tennis championship Gold Group semifinals.

The win set the stage for a championship rematch with 2004 champion Venus Williams who later in the evening saw off the error-prone challenge from World No.11 Elena Dementieva of Russia 6-3, 6-3. Sharapova would be hoping to get two monkeys off her back when she faces Venus on Saturday, her Wimbledon final loss to Venus and her title round loss here to Kim Clijsters, both in 2007.

Though the scoreline gives a picture of a relatively easy win, it was not an easy ride for Sharapova at the Victoria Park here. The tournament second and third seeds traded breaks, with Chakvetadze starting the trend losing the first game two minutes into the match.

Not to be left behind, Sharapova, who again struggled to get her first serves in consistently, dropped her service game to make it one-all. Trading breaks for the next three games, second seed Sharapova finally pulled away to make it 4-2.

Surprisingly even in this game Sharapova failed to get even one first serve in. To add to that, Sharapova’s famous fist pump came an hour and a minute into the match when she finally scorched an ace to go up 3-1 in the second set.

Sloppy serving

“It was more a case of a sloppy service game from both us rather than the other winning points,” was Sharapova’s wry comment after the match.

In fact the two managed only four aces among themselves and shared an equal number of unforced errors (10). Sharapova, however, had three double faults less than the third-seeded Chakvetadze’s six at crucial junctures.

Meanwhile, Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova pulled out of her Silver Group singles semifinal action against Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark. The Dane then went on to wallop her replacement, Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal 6-1, 6-1. Wozniacki, like de Brito was the ambassador here in 2007, and had gone on to win the Silver Group title.

In a late night match tournament, top-seed Ana Ivanovic’s horror run in the new run continued when she was beaten by local girl Peng Shuai 6-1, 6-3 in the Silver Group semifinal.

The results: Gold Group: Maria Sharapova bt Anna Chakvetadze 6-4, 6-2; Venus Williams bt Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-3. Silver Group: Caroline Wozniacki bt Michelle Larcher de Brito 6-1, 6-1; Ana Ivanovic bt Peng Shuai 6-1, 6-3.

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