The underdog reigns supreme at Indian Wells this year. In women’s play, three of the four top seeds have been defeated in the initial rounds of the tournament. In fact, six of eight matches in the fourth round went to the player that was ranked lower. Maria Sharapova lost to Vera Zvonareva and will lose her world number one ranking as well now. Zvonareva was seeded 15th.
Even in the first two sets I didn’t feel like I was playing amazing tennis. After [I served for the match] I just deflated a little bit. I wasn’t moving well at all; I missed a lot of first balls. That obviously gives your opponent so much confidence. She just started swinging and wasn’t making a lot of errors. There was a lot of wrong things going on today. That was just one of them — especially in the third set. But like I said, it was more of a snowball effect than anything else.”
– Maria Sharapova
In the women’s quarterfinals, Zvonareva will face China’s Na Li (12th seed). Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia (14th seed) takes on Shahar Peer of Israel (11th seed).