June 03, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

PARIS, June 2: Dinara Safina saved a match point before emerging as a 6-7, 7-6, 6-2 winner of an all-Russian catfight with world No 1 Maria Sharapova in the fourth round of the French Open on Monday.

The 13th seed, who had already beaten Sharapova in the last 16 at Roland Garros in 2006, will play her third Grand Slam quarter-final against compatriot and seventh seed Elena Dementieva.

The two arguably delivered the finest match of the women’s tournament so far, with Safina, younger sister of former men’s world No 1 Marat Safin, eventually coming out on top after two hours and 52 minutes.

Sharapova made the best start, taking the first break with a crosscourt backhand winner as Safina failed to convert her chances.

Safina finally broke on her seventh break point, which came in the eighth game, and both players held serve until the tiebreak.

The world number 14 opened up a 6-4 lead but Sharapova saved the set points by forcing her opponent into two mishit backhands and claimed the two points she needed to bag the first set after 68 minutes.

Safina threw her racket to the ground in a show of temper reminiscent of her brother, possibly earning her the future nickname of ‘Marata’.

The opening games of the second set went with serve but Sharapova broke for 4-2 with a sharp backhand winner down the line.

She held serve to go 5-2 up and it looked like Safina would bow out.

The 22-year-old from Moscow had a match point against her at 5-3 and saved it with a bold backhand winner down the line and went on to break back before forcing another tiebreak.

The Australian Open champion got off to the best start and was two points from the match, only for Safina to win five points in a row to win it 7-5, the last one when Sharapova’s backhand clipped the net and bounced wide.

Although she threw away a 40-0 lead on her serve to fall behind after the first game of the decider, Safina broke back to love with both players holding serve until the sixth game, when Sharapova conceded another break by netting a forehand.

An exhausted Sharapova found herself unable to run for the ball and bowed out when she sent a forehand wide on the second match point.

The French Open remains, for at least another year, the only Grand Slam title missing from Sharapova’s collection.

Meanwhile, men’s top seed Roger Federer set up a quarter-final against old rival Fernando Gonzalez but he was below par in a 6-4, 7-5, 7-5 win over Frenchman Julien Benneteau in a rain-hit tie.

Gonzalez had looked impressive earlier in the day when he swept past the final American, Robby Ginepri, in straight sets 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-1.

The Swiss star has dropped just one set en route to the last eight, but he will have cause for concern over how he struggled to kill off his lowly-ranked opponent.

The unseeded Benneteau had played more sets than any other player to get the last 16 (14) and he was not expected to pose any problems for the world No 1 who won their only previous meeting in straight sets in Cincinnati last year.

But in each of the first two sets he broke Federer’s serve when trailing 3-5 only to lose both of them by 6-4 and 7-5.

At that stage heavy rain brought an abrupt end to proceedings and it took ninety minutes before they got back onto a packed Philippe Chatrier Centre Court.

With warm sunshine replacing the gloomy skies that marked the earlier action, Federer again went a break up to lead 3-1, but again Benneteau battled back to level at 3-3.

The Swiss maestro was finding it hard to put away his world-ranked 55th opponent, letting slip a match point at 5-4 up but two games later he finished it off with a smash at the net.

Big-hitting Gonzalez matched his best ever Roland Garros performance by defeating Ginepri.

The lone South American survivor in the tournament’s fourth round last got to the final eight in 2003 when he lost in five sets to eventual champion Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain.

Ginepri’s run to the last 16 had been entirely unexpected as he had lost in the first round in his five previous appearances.

On Sunday a merciless Rafael Nadal extended his unbeaten streak at Roland Garros to a jaw-dropping 25 matches.

Fernando Verdasco became the latest casualty on Nadal’s apparently unstoppable route to a fourth consecutive crown.

Even the match umpire was starting to sound bored rigid with announcing “Jeu Nadal”, as the 22nd-seeded Verdasco, the fourth left-hander the champion has faced this year, went down 6-1, 6-0, 6-2 in under two hours.

Nadal now faces Nicolas Almagro in the last eight in a match scheduled for the champion’s 22nd birthday on Tuesday.

With French hopes Michael Llodra and Paul-Henri Mathieu gone, French hopes turned to wildcard Jeremy Chardy.

The world No 145, conqueror of David Nalbandian in round two, gave as good as he got in a tight tussle with Spanish 19th seed Almagro but went down 7-6, 7-6, 7-5.

Almagro’s dubious reward is place No 26 in Nadal’s run.

France, which had five players in the fourth round for the first time since 1971, must now hope Gael Monfils can spring a surprise against Ivan Ljubicic later on Monday.

Monday’s results (prefix number denotes seeding):

Men’s singles:

Fourth round: 1-Roger Federer (Switzerland) bt Julien Benneteau (France) 6-4, 7-5, 7-5; 24-Fernando Gonzalez (Chile) bt Robby Ginepri (US) 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-1.

Sunday’s remaining results:

Fourth round: 2-Rafael Nadal (Spain) bt 22-Fernando Verdasco (Spain) 6-1, 6-0, 6-2; 19-Nicolas Almagro (Spain) bt Jeremy Chardy (France) 7-6 (7-0), 7-6 (9-7), 7-5.

Women’s singles:

Fourth round: 13-Dinara Safina (Russia) bt 1-Maria Sharapova (Russia) 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-5), 6-2; 7-Elena Dementieva (Russia) bt 11-Vera Zvonareva (Russia) 6-4, 1-6, 6-2.—Agencies