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Venus Williams‘s comeback gathered steam on Sunday as the former world no. 1 saved a matchpoint in her third round match to reach the last 16 at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
Williams finally beat Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak in a two-hour, 53-minute third round marathon, rallying from 4-2 down, and a match point at 5-4 down, to take the third set 46 64 76(5).
“My mentality is to go for broke, and then from there I try to be sensible,” Williams commented. “That was the serve I wanted, just a big one to hopefully force the issue, and thank God it went in. Wow.
“It was tough out there. It was made even tougher because she played well. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her play as well as she did. She was close to the Top 20, so she has that tennis in her. I have to give her a lot of credit.”
“She had match point? “Thank God I’m oblivious to the score a lot of times. Oh my God, that’s not good news. But I really tried not to let anything discourage me today. I kept thinking about how I really needed this match and those points. I kept thinking about the Olympics, and how I need my points.
“When things look bleak, I think about the Olympics. It keeps me motivated.”
In other matches, seventh seed Marion Bartoli scored a 64 76(6) win over Simona Halep, No.16 seed Dominika Cibulkova beat Zheng Jie, 62 60; No.22 seed Maria Kirilenko, who got past Ksenia Pervak, 62 61; and Spanish teen Garbiñe Muguruza Blanco, who scored a 62 16 76(5) upset of No.24 seed Flavia Pennetta,
“She’s in very good shape and playing very well, and she’s young, so she has nothing to lose,” Pennetta said of Muguruza Blanco. “I didn’t know her at all, so it was not easy for me in the first set, but from the second set I understood a bit more how to play her. In the last set we both played well. It was really tight.”
Singles – Third Round(1) Victoria Azarenka (BLR) d. (WC) Heather Watson (GBR) 60 62(5) Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) d. Sílvia Soler-Espinosa (ESP) 61 62(7) Marion Bartoli (FRA) d. Simona Halep (ROU) 64 76(6)(15) Ana Ivanovic (SRB) d. (20) Daniela Hantuchova (SVK) 62 76(2)(16) Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) d. Zheng Jie (CHN) 62 60(22) Maria Kirilenko (RUS) d. Ksenia Pervak (KAZ) 62 61(WC) Garbiñe Muguruza Blanco (ESP) d. (24) Flavia Pennetta (ITA) 62 16 76(6)(WC) Venus Williams (USA) d. (WC) Aleksandra Wozniak (CAN) 46 64 76(5)
