Ana’s run at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells ended with a 6-4, 7-6(4) defeat to 15th seed Marion Bartoli from France. In an intense contest, the Frenchwoman played brilliantly and executed her gameplan - keeping the ball away from Ana's forehand - to perfection.
Ana had lost serve just two times in the tournament prior to this match, but she was broken in the opening game. After three successive breaks, Bartoli was the first to hold and pick up a 3-1 lead.
The 19th seed broke back, but could not avoid another break of serve in the ninth game. With Bartoli serving for the set, Ana earned two breakpoints to level the set at 5-5. In spite of Ana firing some superb groundstrokes, the Frenchwoman clinched the set 6-4.
Although Bartoli received medical treatment at the end of the first set (she later revealed that she was suffering from a virus), she covered the court extremely well. She broke Ana at the beginning of the second set, but the former world No.1 managed to level at 2-2 with a marvellous cross court forehand.
However, such was the scarcity of forehands that she was able to hit due to Bartoli's pummelling of her backhand, there was added pressure when the 23-year-old had the opportunity to hit her favourite shot, and that possibly caused her to make a few too many errors on that wing.
Both players continued to struggle with their serve as they were broken alternately, until Ana finally held in the ninth game and was just two points away from forcing a decider. However, a tiebreak ensued.
Ana started the tiebreak with a double fault, her sixth of the match, and could not counter Bartoli’s consistency on the crucial points. The 15th seed wrapped up victory after two hours and 7 minutes of absorbing strokeplay. “It was a very tough match," said Ana.
"I felt like I created a lot of opportunities for myself, but unfortunately I just didn’t use them. In that first set when I broke back and was 4-3 up I thought I had a few chances and then at 4-4 she played a couple of good shots and broke me and then the set was gone. It was really tough but I can learn a lot from this match.
Ana will re-enter the top 20 following this mini-run to the quarter-finals, and will be in action again next week at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
She added: “Definitely it’s a good base to go to Miami from. You know, coming into this week I didn’t expect to get this far in the tournament, but today I thought I made a few unforced errors from my forehand side and that was a little bit disappointing because I lost a few service games, and I didn’t feel I was serving badly, but just that the unforced errors were creeping in. That’s why it was so frustrating."
