Wozniacki battles pain to beat Zvonareva

Published on Thursday 29 October 2009 21:43

TEENAGER Caroline Wozniacki fought through the pain barrier in Doha yesterday to move to the brink of the WTA Championships semi-finals with a dramatic 6-0, 6-7, 6-4 defeat of late stand-in Vera Zvonareva.

The 19-year-old finished the match in agony as she was struck with cramp in her left thigh while Russian Zvonareva, who replaced the injured Dinara Safina in White Group, suffered a nose bleed in the middle of the second set.

Wozniacki, who spent a minute short of three hours beating Victoria Azarenka in her opening match on Wednesday, appeared to be heading for an easy win when she capitalised on a slow start by the world No 9 Zvonareva, last year's runner-up.

However, after squandering a 5-2 lead in the second set she became embroiled in a brutal baseline scrap that had both players gasping for air on another stifling night in the Qatari capital. She could have finished it at 6-5 when she had two match points but Zvonareva hung on and edged a tiebreaker to set up a deciding set after a ten-minute heat break.

Wozniacki needed a thigh massage after moving 3-1 ahead in the third with a sensational pick-up of a Zvonareva drop shot and by the end the bandage around her left leg was in tatters as the rallies grew longer and more tortuous.

After breaking serve to lead 5-4, Wozniacki was pole-axed by cramp at 30-30, screaming in agony and writhing on the purple concrete. Somehow she picked herself up to forge a third match point and this time Zvonareva netted a weak forehand after two hours 48 minutes of absorbing action.

A tearful Wozniacki could hardly walk to the net to shake Zvonareva's hand. After her controversial withdrawal from a tournament in Luxembourg last week, the US Open runner-up has already spent nearly six hours on court here.

Serena Williams is the first to reach the semis after a 6-2, 6-4 win over Elena Dementieva.

At the St Petersburg Open in Russia, meanwhile, top seed Mikhail Youzhny retired with a back injury midway through his second-round match against Denis Istomin.

Youzhny, fresh from winning his first Kremlin Cup title on Sunday, took a medical timeout after losing the first set but was forced to quit three games later, trailing 6-2, 2-1. "I just felt a sharp pain in my back midway through the first set," the Russian world No 25 explained.