Flavia Pennetta stuns Sharapova to advance to US Open pre-quarterfinals

Italian Flavia Pennetta proved too much to handle for an erratic Maria Sharapova and knocked out the third seed to advance to the last 16 of the 2011 US Open.

2006 champion Maria Sharapova suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Italian Flavia Pennetta and bowed out of the 2011 US Open, season's fourth and final Grand Slam event being played here at Flushing Meadows in New York, USA.

Pennetta made a great start to the match and snatched a double break to lead the opening set 4-0. Sharapova did manage to make a mini comeback but failed to hold her serve in the eighth game, as a result of which Pennetta wrapped up the first set 6-3.

The second set gave Sharapova a much needed shift in momentum and she edged past Pennetta after a series of trade of breaks. The decider gave Pennetta a favourable start on serve, with the help of which she raced to a 3-0 and 4-1 lead. The Russian, true to form, made another comeback and levelled things up till 4-4 but failed to keep the error count to minimum and lost her serve in the last game, thereby losing 3-6, 6-3, 4-6 in a match that lasted two hours and 29 minutes of play.

Pennetta hit a total of 18 winners to a surprising 30 from Sharapova but took full advantage of the overwhelming 60 unforced errors committed by the Russian. Sharapova's ill-timed 12 double faults also did the trick for the Italian star.

Earlier today, second seed Vera Zvonareva posted a clinical 6-4, 7-5 win over Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues to move to the pre-quarterfinals of the Open. She was later joined by Shuai Peng, who edged 19th seed Julia Goerges 6-4, 7-6(1) to move ahead in the draw.

Other winners of the day so far are Angelique Kerber and Monica Niculescu, who stunned 27th seeded Czech Lucie Safarova 6-0, 6-1 in little over an hour.