Sharapova, Davenport Roll Into Indian Wells SemifinalsPosted on March 18, 2005  It took a while for the engine to warm up Thursday, but world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport slowly cut down on the unforced errors to defeat No. 7 seed Nathalie Dechy 7-6(2), 6-0 to reach her eighth career semifinal at the WTA stop in Indian Wells."I had a comfortable tiebreaker in the first set and I got a lot of confidence from that and it kept growing," Davenport said. "I let her back (in the first set) so many times. Both games up 40-love, was serving, got broken both of those. Once I held to get to 6-all, I never really looked back from that point." The win earned the American a semifinal meeting with the other hottest player on tour, No. 3 seed Maria Sharapova who doused the hot-handed No. 20 seed Mary Pierce 6-4, 6-3. Sharapova upped her record on the year to 16-1, reversing a loss to the Frenchwoman at last year's US Open in their only previous meeting. "She has a few favorite (service) spots, and I think I picked up on those," said Sharapova, whose return of serve was key against the former Australian and French Open winner. "I've seen her play a few matches. Her serve usually goes down the 'T.' I basically tried to cover those serves, but you still have to win the point." Scheduled for Friday in Indian Wells are (4) Dementieva vs. Clijsters (Belgian leads meetings 5-1), (1) Davenport vs. (3) Sharapova (Russian leads 2-0), and in doubles (Q) Kirilenko/Salerni vs. (2) Petrova/Shaughnessy, and (1) Ruano Pascual/Suarez vs. (4) Raymond/Stubbs. "Each match is tough and each match is different," Clijsters said. "The next thing I have on my mind is (Elena) Dementieva. So I'm definitely not thinking about winning the tournament, not at all, especially not in the situation I'm in now." |
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