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The night sessions at the US Open thus far have had absolutely no drama whatsoever when it came to the women's matches and Maria Sharapova ensured that pattern continued on Thursday with an absolutely crushing 6-1 6-2 win against the relatively talented Iveta Benasova. 21 unforced errrors was not going to help Benasova against her experienced opponent and Maria had a relatively easy outing compared to her opening round encounter against Jarmila Groth. With both Maria and Caroline Wozniacki winning with such ease, their mouth watering encounter in the Round of 16 seems more and more a certainty.

The lack of drama on the women's side was compensated to a fair extent by the exciting play of Phillip Petzschner of Germany who provided much entertainment even as he went down 7-5, 6-3, 7-6(6) to the third seeded Novak Djokovic. The first set was going fairly smoothly on serve until the German was serving at 4-5 in the opening set and suddenly found himself having to fend off 3 set points. It was then that some kind of fracas took place in the crowd. That seemed to be a welcome break for Petzschner and he mixed in a few classy drop shots with his powerful forehands to level the set at 5-5. The first set seemed headed for a tie break, but in a strange turn of events, Djokovic had to fend off a break point in the subsequent game and then at 5-6 for some inexplicable reason Petzschner decided to hit the ball even harder and try out riskier shots. Djokovic managed to capitalize on the errors being made and instead of a first set tiebreak, he managed to win the set 7-5.

The second set began with both players holding serve. Petzschner was still playing with a lot of flair but Novak was gaining in confidence with the one set to love lead to back him up. Djoko had a break point at 3-2 and came to the net and was initially only denied by the net cord. A double fault gave the Serb another break point though and this time he was not to be denied. He then held his serve comfortably for the remainder of the games and with a two set lead was well on his way to a comfortable victory under the New York lights.

The thrid set produced some high quality tennis from both players as Petzschner refused to give up his surprise serve and volley tactics as well as his go for broke approach on the forehand side. At 3-2 he even had a break point but his sneak into the net just led to an easy passing shot for Djokovic. He was unable to convert that break and seemingly crushed by the lack of success he was broken at 3-3. The fight had not been extinguished though and with some fine rallying the German managed to get to 0-40 on the Novak serve. Djokovic was broken off the second break point and the crowd was delighted that they would get to see a few more games. Two break points landed on Novak's platter after a careless double fault by the German. However some fearful walloping of the ball for four straight points gave Petzschner a 5-4 lead. The players held serve for the next three games and Djokovic had to play out a third set tie breaker.

Petzschner hit a 132 mph serve to open the tie break and it looked like he was going to throw everything at his opponent in this last ditch effort to stay in the match. 1-0. A tough volley was asked of Djokovic and he failed and it was a mini break for Petz. 2-1. Djoko hit a line drive with great force to tie things up at 2-2. A slow build up to an epic point took Djokovic to 3-2 as he finally managed to force an error in a 28 shot rally. However the mini break was surrendered very tamely as his double handed backhand went into the net when the court was wide open for a winner. Petzschner decided to take his chances and a wonderfully angled cross court forehand gave him another mini break. A very tame slice into the net and it was back on serve at 4-4. At this stage 7 straight points had been lost by the server in the tie break. 5-4 to Djokovic and the match was on his racquet. A tough serve resulted in 2 match points for the Serbian number 3 seed. He failed to convert on either of them and the German had the service again. Again Nole had a wide open court and all he had to do was to hit his forehand down the line. He took a nervous swing at it and plunked it into the net. 6-6 and the players changed ends. With the tie break so tightly balanced the big hitting German lined up a big forehand down the line and missed it. A brave shot, but a foolish shot at this stage. 7-6 and a third matchpoint for Djokovic. This time there was no mistake from the Serb as an unforced error by Petzschke led to the straight sets win.

File Photograph Copyright: Italian Open (Constantini)