New York: Ninth-seeded Sam Stosur edged No. 24 Nadia Petrova 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-5 on Friday to reach the fourth round of the U.S. Open, barely avoiding the tournament's first 39-game, three-tiebreaker women's match in 20 years.
Stosur, the 2010 French Open runner-up, converted her fifth match point, breaking serve when Petrova netted a forehand after 3 hours, 16 minutes of play.
Had Petrova held serve there, they would have headed to a tiebreaker to decide the outcome. The other Grand Slam tournaments don't use tiebreakers in the third set of women's matches or the fifth set of men's.
Since the tiebreaker system began in 1970, only two U.S. Open women's singles matches had three of them: victories by Gigi Fernandez in 1991, and by Steffi Graf in 1985.
Comments
0 comment