Pierce’s Run Gets Stonewalled by Sharapova

There are no soft grades when it comes to comeback evaluation.

Not when Maria Sharapova of Russia is across the net.

The quasi-comeback of France’s Mary Pierce ran smack into the hard-hitting wall of Sharapova on Thursday night at the Pacific Life Open. Pierce seemed ready for the test, having handled two other hard-hitting youngsters, Nicole Vaidisova and Nadia Petrova, with relative ease.

But the bar was set considerably higher against the Wimbledon champion. Sharapova withstood an early barrage of groundstrokes and defeated Pierce, 6-4, 6-3, in 1 hour 27 minutes in the quarterfinals at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

“I just hung in there the first few games on her serve. She was serving too good,” Sharapova said in her on-court TV interview. “Not much I could do.”

It was a reversal of their last meeting, a three-set Pierce victory at the U.S. Open, and it was suggested to the 17-year-old Russian that she is playing better than when she won Wimbledon last year.

“I’m getting there,” Sharapova said, smiling. “It’s hard to say because Wimbledon was on grass. I think I’ve been improving on a lot of things. Physically, I can be on the court a lot longer.”

Today’s semifinals will feature top-seeded Lindsay Davenport against third-seeded Sharapova. The first semifinal, at noon, is between Kim Clijsters of Belgium and fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia.

The quarterfinal between Davenport and seventh-seeded Nathalie Dechy of France was compelling for about a set. There would be no repeat of their semifinal thriller at the Australian Open in January, which Davenport won in three sets.

Thursday’s quarterfinal, which Davenport won, 7-6 (2), 6-0, was either compelling or erratic, depending upon your point of view. It was littered with service breaks; starting from 3-2 on Davenport’s serve, there were five consecutive breaks.

Dechy finally held serve at 5-5 to stop the inauspicious streak.

“I let her back in the set so many times,” Davenport said. “Both games up 40-0, was serving, got broken both of those, which you can’t let someone get back into the first set like that. So I really felt once I held to get to 6-6, I never really looked back from that point.

“I started off the match well, and played the second set really well. Just some bad games thrown in there in the first.”

It took Davenport a while to shake off an apparent bad call in the sixth game of the first set, which would have given her the game. The chair umpire told her it was too close to overrule.

“It was just kind of bizarre,” Davenport said. “It was so late. I was just about to hit the next shot. She obviously, the umpire, didn’t overrule it right away. My thing with her was how she handled it. She either thought it was in or out right when it bounced. You can’t wait that long.

“It was frustrating, but I had already been up 40-0 that game and let it slip. I was probably frustrated about that, as well, at the point when that happened, that ad in.”

She was told that TV replays showed her shot had landed in. “I thought it was. Thank you for that,” Davenport said, smiling.

Said Dechy: “I think she started playing really well when she was down 6-5. She was with the wind, and she really started to change her serve a little bit, started to be more flat. Even on the second serve, she went for some really fast serves.”

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Featured Matches

Today at the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden:

STADIUM COURT, starting at noon

* Elena Dementieva (Russia) vs. Kim Clijsters (Belgium).

* Andre Agassi vs. Lleyton Hewitt (Australia).

* Lindsay Davenport vs. Maria Sharapova (Russia)

Not before 7:30 p.m.

* Carlos Moya (Spain) vs. Andy Roddick.