Top seed Maria Sharapova was lucky to reach the Kremlin Cup quarter-finals after her second-round opponent Anna-Lena Groenefeld retired with an ankle injury while leading 6-1 4-2.

The unseeded German was 4-1 ahead in the second set when she slipped and twisted her left ankle.

Until her injury, Groenefeld had dominated the world number one, outplaying Sharapova from the start.

The Florida-based Russian, who was making her Kremlin Cup debut, was broken three times in the opening set, los...

World number one Maria Sharapova has said she wants to play for Russia in the Fed Cup at some point in the future.

The Florida-based 18-year-old has turned down invitations to play for the country of her birth in the past in order to concentrate on improving her singles ranking.

However, before the opening of the Kremlin Cup, Sharapova said: "I want to play for Russia, I definitely want to play for Russia in Fed Cup competition.

"I just don't know when I'll be ready to make my Fed Cup d...

Russian teenager Maria Sharapova said she was exhausted by her fight-back to force a third set in her loss to Kim Clijsters in Friday's U.S. Open semifinals and must improve her physical conditioning to reach her tennis peak.

"I kind of gave it all I had in the tiebreaker," the top-seeded Russian said after her 6-2 6-7 6-3 defeat. "Then the third, I kind of ran out of gas.

"At that point it's pretty tough because physically I still have to get a lot better and I have to play these three-se...

Maria is out of the USOpen after she lost to #4 seed Kim Clijsters of Belgium in the semis 2-6 7-6 6-3.


The Belgian was on the verge of victory against an out-of-sorts Maria when she led by a set and 6-5.



But Maria recovered from 0-40 and saved two more match points before racing through the tie-break.


Maria had not been at her best in earlier rounds and had to battle through.



She did well to stay in touch in the second set, but the end looked inevitable...

Sharapova won her first four matches in an average of 59 minutes. Against Petrova, each of the first two sets took almost as long, and the match ran 2 1/2 hours before Sharapova, shrieking on nearly every point, ended it with a break in the final game on a lunging backhand return that Petrova couldn't handle.



"Wow! It's absolutely amazing, I can't believe I pulled this match out today," said Sharapova, who lost in the third round last year and the second round in her first U.S. Open t...