Maria Sharapova's service problems might cost her in the semifinals as she faces a very tough opponent in Andrea Petkovic.
Maria Sharapova of Russian and Andrea Petkovic of Germany will meet on Thursday, March 31st from the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Florida.
Petkovic enters the match seeded 21st in the draw while Sharapova is the 16 seed and neither player looked like a finalist pre-tournament because of the presence of Caroline Wozniacki in their half of the draw.
However with Petkovic upsetting the world number one a few days ago the draw has really opened up and now with Kim Clijsters eliminated from the tournament, there is a serious possibility of an underdog champion rising to the occasion in Miami.
Sharapova and Petkovic have met twice before on tour, both matches that were played on the hard court surface and both matches from the last year.
Sharapova won the small match played between the two as she eliminated Petkovic in the round of 32 at WTA Cincinnati 2010. However Petkovic defeated Sharapova in straight sets at the 2011 Australian Open, the biggest win of the German's career so far, at least as far as Grand Slam matches go.
Sharapova barely made the semifinals in Miami as she barely survived the challenge of Alexandra Dulgheru in the quarterfinals. While a win is a win no matter how you slice it, Sharapova had a discrediting 17 double faults in the match, a total that averaged out to one per service game.
Petkovic is playing too well right now to allow that kind of service form to pass through to the final and she looks good to win their semifinal match on Thursday.
The Order of Play for the match offers the following information regarding the match time:
STADIUM start 1:00 pm (ET)
[21] Andrea Petkovic (GER) vs [16] Maria Sharapova (RUS)
