{"id":27889,"date":"2017-04-29T11:11:47","date_gmt":"2017-04-29T11:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=27889"},"modified":"2017-04-29T11:11:47","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T11:11:47","slug":"smooth-sharapova-cruises-into-stuttgart-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/smooth-sharapova-cruises-into-stuttgart-semis.html","title":{"rendered":"Smooth Sharapova cruises into Stuttgart semis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<strong><span style=\"font-size:22px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Smooth Sharapova cruises into Stuttgart semis<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Former world number one Maria Sharapova cruised into the Stuttgart Grand Prix semi-finals on Friday, extending her winning comeback from a doping suspension with a smooth 6-3 6-4 victory over Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit.<\/span><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Wildcard entrant Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam winner, returned to action only this week following her 15-month drugs ban, but has looked like she never really went away in winning her three matches so far without dropping a set.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Sharapova has also received wildcards for upcoming tournaments in Madrid and Rome, angering some players who say a doping offender should start from the lower-tier tournaments and earn back ranking points instead.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Reaching the Stuttgart final could be enough to move Sharapova&#39;s ranking back above 200 and secure her a spot in the qualifying tournament for the French Open, and if she did well in Madrid and Rome she might make the main draw for Wimbledon.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">&quot;I thought I had a really good rhythm today,&quot; Sharapova told reporters. &quot;When you don&#39;t know your opponent too well you try to figure them out and when I got my opportunity I took it,&quot; she said of her dominant phase late in the first set.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">&quot;It&#39;s part of being a competitor. We work too hard to come out here and not to give it everything we have. It&#39;s important to have that intensity.&quot;<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The 21-year-old Kontaveit, who battled through the Stuttgart qualifiers into the main draw, confirmed her fine current form early in Friday&#39;s match, comfortably holding serve and matching Sharapova&#39;s power from the baseline.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The Estonian world number 76, fresh from her first WTA tour final earlier this month, was broken twice in a row though as Sharapova upped the pressure, attacking every serve of her opponent to win five games in a row.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Sharapova broke again early in the second set and despite twice dropping her serve in a late bout of nerves she broke the Estonian again, sealing victory on the first match point as Kontaveit sent a forehand long.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The U.S.-based Russian will next play the winner of the quarter-final between France&#39;s Kristina Mladenovic and Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-size:8px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">source:-http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-tennis-stuttgart-women-idUSKBN17U23W<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/smooth-sharapova-cruises-into-stuttgart-semis.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smooth Sharapova cruises into Stuttgart semis Former world number one Maria Sharapova cruised into the Stuttgart Grand Prix semi-finals on Friday, extending her winning comeback from a doping suspension with a smooth 6-3 6-4 victory over Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit. Wildcard entrant Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam winner, returned to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12634,17411,12641,2037,12636,12635],"class_list":["post-27889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-news-sports","tag-smooth-sharapova-cruises-into-stuttgart-semis","tag-sports-articles","tag-sports-news-today","tag-sports-scores","tag-sports-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}