Mauresmo moves on

NEW YORK — Gasping for breath after long exchanges, Serena Williams ran out of energy and answers against Amelie Mauresmo.

In a showdown between two women who’ve been ranked No. 1 and own a total of nine Grand Slam titles, the top-seeded Mauresmo won nine of the last 12 points Monday night to beat the unseeded Williams 6-4, 0-6, 6-2 and reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals.

“I could have came out on top had I made a few more shots and had I just been a little bit more consistent,” said Williams, who didn’t think her recent lack of matches was a factor. “Maybe a little bit more fire or something.”

Williams, a seven-time major winner and 9-1 against Mauresmo coming in, was superb in the second set. But the outcome turned at 3-2 in the final set, when a 35-stroke exchange ended with Williams pushing a backhand into the net, then pausing for air – something Mauresmo noticed.

That sent Mauresmo on her way to a key break, and Williams wouldn’t win another game, saying later: “Just fell apart after that.”

On match point, they engaged in a 24-stroke rally that Mauresmo ended with a sharply angled volley Williams couldn’t get to in time.

“I don’t think she picked up her game 1,000 percent or even that much,” Williams said. “I just think that she cut back on the errors.”

What Mauresmo didn’t do was force the issue: She finished with only 12 winners, 10 fewer than Williams. But Williams was largely her own undoing down the stretch, with 15 unforced errors in the third set alone, only one fewer than she had in the first two sets combined.

Williams, who won the Open in 1999 and 2002, came to Flushing Meadows this time having played only 12 matches all season because of a six-month break she used to rehab her surgically repaired left knee and to refresh herself mentally, too. Williams tumbled out of the top 100 in the rankings, and needed a wild-card invitation to play at the Open.

Now Mauresmo plays No. 12 Dinara Safina, whose path to the final eight hasn’t included a seeded player.

The match under the lights at Arthur Ashe Stadium brought back some electricity to a tournament that felt a bit Monday afternoon like a party carrying on after the guest of honor has left. The U.S. Open did indeed proceed without Andre Agassi, although a fan cried out, “Do it for Andre!” during Andy Roddick’s fourth-round match.

Roddick obliged, putting together a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Benjamin Becker, the German qualifier who ended Agassi’s career the day before.

Roddick and No. 5 James Blake, whose fourth-round match against No. 12 Tomas Berdych is today, are the only U.S. men left in the tournament. No. 18 Robby Ginepri bowed out with a 7-6 (1), 6-4, 3-6, 3-6, 7-6 (1) loss to No. 14 Tommy Haas.

Haas next faces 2000 Open champion Marat Safin, Safina’s older brother. Other past winners still in it are Lindsay Davenport and Justine Henin-Hardenne, who set up a quarterfinal clash with straight-set wins. But 2004 Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova is gone after losing to No. 19 Jelena Jankovic 6-7 (5) 6-3, 6-2. Also into the quarterfinals were No. 3 Maria Sharapova – who lost the first three games before eliminating No. 24 Li Na of China 6-4, 6-2 – along with 2004 runner-up Elena Dementieva.

Roddick won the 2003 Open but lost in the first round last year, part of a dismal stretch that briefly dropped him out of the top 10. Now he has Jimmy Connors as his coach and a 10-match winning streak.

He moves on to a rematch from the 2001 quarterfinals against that year’s champion, Lleyton Hewitt, who got past No. 25 Richard Gasquet 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3.

Becker was physically and emotionally drained, but he might not have had much of a chance, anyway, given how well Roddick served. Roddick won 57 of 70 points in his service games, was stretched to deuce only once, and ended the first set this way: 137 mph ace, 100 mph ace, 145 mph ace, 142 mph service winner.

Roddick was a bit anxious about how things would go with Connors, who’s been pretty much out of the game since retiring in the early 1990s. But Roddick uses words like “refreshing” and “invigorating” when discussing Connors’ effect on him.

“Maybe it’s been a while since he’s just been one of the boys, playing pool and poker and hanging out,” said Roddick, on track for a semifinal against No. 2 Rafael Nadal, a 6-1, 7-6 (3), 6-4 winner over Jiri Novak. “We’d practice, he’d come home, kick his feet up on my couch, have a beer. It was pretty surreal.”