4:02PM Thursday January 03, 2008
By Simon Winter with NZPA
New Zealand's Marina Erakovic caused a major upset in downing top seed Vera Zvonareva, of Russia, in their quarterfinal at the ASB Classic women's tennis tournament in Auckland today.
Erakovic came from behind to win a thrilling third set tiebreaker and take the match 6-3 2-6 7-6.
After a strong start to the match the 19-year-old, ranked 152nd in the world, looked set to exit the tournament after losing the second set and going a break down early in the third.
But after winning a marathon seventh game, Erakovic broke serve to level the set at 4-4.
She then held serve to lead 5-4, but, after Zvonareva had also held serve, an increasingly nervous Erakovic dropped serve to hand the Russian what appeared the decisive advantage.
But in a stunning turn of events, Erakovic found her A-game to break back to love and force a tie-breaker.
With the tiebreaker level at 5-5, Erakovic's forehand seemed destined for the net, but clipped the top, and bounced in.
There was nothing Zvonareva could do and Erakovic had match point.
Moments later she closed it out.
Earlier, second seed, Maria Kirilenko, of Russia, lost 1-6 3-6 to sixth seeded Austrian Tamira Paszek.
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