{"id":23058,"date":"2013-01-24T09:02:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T08:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rt.com\/sport\/tennis\/sharapova-loses-australian-open-633\/"},"modified":"2013-01-24T09:02:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T08:02:28","slug":"sharapova-crashes-out-of-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/sharapova-crashes-out-of-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharapova crashes out of Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/sport\/tennis\/sharapova-loses-australian-open-633\/open-russia-tennis-reacts.n.jpg\" width=\"370\" height=\"277\" alt=\"Maria Sharapova of Russia reacts during her women's singles semi-final match against Li Na of China at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne January 24, 2013. (Reuters\/Damir Sagolj)\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"VideoDescription\" class=\"grey mv10\">Maria Sharapova of Russia reacts during her women&#8217;s singles semi-final match against Li Na of China at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne January 24, 2013. (Reuters\/Damir Sagolj)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>China\u2019s Li Na thrashed Russian champion Maria Sharapova in a convincing straight sets victory in Melbourne, putting the Chinese contender through to the final. Li dominated the match, storming through to win 6-2 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old tennis veteran Li Na will now face off against Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. The defending champion defeated 19-year-old American Sloane Stephens in the other semi.<\/p>\n<p>Sharapova made a shaky start to the match, serving up a double fault on the first point. Li Na then left the Russian in the dust, breaking Sharapova\u2019s serve for the first time in the tournament and taking the first set 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of Sharapova\u2019s attempts to secure a hold in the second set, an unrelenting display of tennis from the Chinese number six seed left the Russian powerless to respond.<\/p>\n<p>Li Na made short work of the Russian, closing the match in one hour and 33 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the match Sharapova had blazed a trail through the tournament, relinquishing just nine games on her road to the semi-finals. However, in less than a set Sharapova had lost the same number of games as in all of her previous matches combined.<\/p>\n<p>The pair have met previously on 12 occasions, with Sharapova holding an 8-4 win-loss record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.quantserve.com\/pixel\/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/sport\/tennis\/sharapova-loses-australian-open-633\/open-russia-tennis-reacts.n.jpg\" width=\"370\" height=\"277\" alt=\"Maria Sharapova of Russia reacts during her women's singles semi-final match against Li Na of China at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne January 24, 2013. (Reuters\/Damir Sagolj)\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Maria Sharapova of Russia reacts during her women&#8217;s singles semi-final match against Li Na of China at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne January 24, 2013. (Reuters\/Damir Sagolj)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>China&rsquo;s Li Na thrashed Russian champion Maria Sharapova in a convincing straight sets victory in Melbourne, putting the Chinese contender through to the final. Li dominated the match, storming through to win 6-2 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old tennis veteran Li Na will now face off against Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. The defending champion defeated 19-year-old American Sloane Stephens in the other semi.<\/p>\n<p>Sharapova made a shaky start to the match, serving up a double fault on the first point. Li Na then left the Russian in the dust, breaking Sharapova&rsquo;s serve for the first time in the tournament and taking the first set 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of Sharapova&rsquo;s attempts to secure a hold in the second set, an unrelenting display of tennis from the Chinese number six seed left the Russian powerless to respond.<\/p>\n<p>Li Na made short work of the Russian, closing the match in one hour and 33 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the match Sharapova had blazed a trail through the tournament, relinquishing just nine games on her road to the semi-finals. However, in less than a set Sharapova had lost the same number of games as in all of her previous matches combined.<\/p>\n<p>The pair have met previously on 12 occasions, with Sharapova holding an 8-4 win-loss record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.quantserve.com\/pixel\/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}