Game over for Sharapova

Maria Sharapova should have reached her third straight Roland Garros quarterfinal, but crumbled late in the third set and lost to compatriot Dinara Safina, 7-5 2-6 7-5, in two hours and 34 minutes on Court Suzanne Lenglen Sunday.Sharapova led 4-0 and 5-1 in the final set, but won only won six more points, as Safina stormed back to reach the final eight at a Grand Slam for the first time."I just didn't want to leave the court. I was enjoying. It was nice to play," is how Safina described her mindset at 1-5. "I just wanted to stay more. I said like, okay, for to stay more, I have to try to do more. And I played I think very well from 5-1."Safina, the 14th seed, really only played well for parts of the opening set and in the final six games of the match, but it was enough to oust Sharapova."She picked up her game a little bit and mine went down. You know, that's not a good combination," Sharapova said. "I really think it has to do with the fact that I haven't, you know, had those kind of tough matches in the past few weeks and it's hard to come into a Grand Slam [like that]."It's in your hands and you've got to finish it off, all of a sudden you start thinking. That's what happened today."On the verge of defeat, Safina found her rhythm. Her ground strokes started finding the line and her defensive play picked up. And when Safina did not win the point outright, Sharapova gave it away. Even when she came to the net, Sharapova could not slow Safina's momentum.The match ended on a backhand cross court winner off a too-deep Sharapova forehand volley."I took everything in my hands, you know" Safina said of her comeback. "I said, 'Okay, like before she was dictating, I had to run always from corner to corner.' I said, 'Okay, now I try to make her run.' I started to look for the lines and I started to be more aggressive from every point."But Sharapova never should have been in that position - this could have been a fairly routine straight set victory. The former Wimbledon champion gift-wrapped the opening set for Safina by failing to consolidate two early breaks and then sailing an easy forehand on set point at 5-4, one of 33 first-set unforced errors.Safina won the final three games of the first set, breaking at love to close out, but Sharapova recovered quickly. She took the second set with little trouble and built what seemed to be an insurmountable lead in the third set."I didn't think I would be playing my best tennis here [because of a foot injury]…but I did the best I can," Sharapova admitted. "You know, I had the chances to be in the quarterfinals; I just didn't take them."She did not take them in large part due to her forehand. Its inconsistency kept Safina afloat in the opening set and it abandoned her once again during Safina's resurgence, in particular when she served at 5-4.Safina's break in the tenth game came care of Sharapova's three consecutive forehand errors.In the quarterfinals, Safina will meet another Russian, 8th seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, who posted her own come-from-behind victory Sunday, 1-6 6-4 6-4 over Italian Francesca Schiavone.