Jelena Jankovic joined Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic in the last four at the Pacific Life Open when American Lindsay Davenport retired from their quarterfinal because of a back injury.
The 31-year-old Davenport, two times a champion at Indian Wells, summoned her trainer when trailing third-seeded Jankovic 4-1. After losing the first set 6-2, Davenport decided to retire.
“I’ve gone down this road before and you never know, maybe it’ll loosen up,” said Davenport. “My back was injured before I came here (to Indian Wells) but it got better and got better.
“Then I woke up this morning and I just couldn’t move. It was pretty obvious to me after two games that it was pretty sore out there and pretty hard to rotate.”
This year at Indian Wells we’ll have an all-Russian semifinal featuring Kuznetsova and Sharapova, and an all-Serbian semifinal with Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic. Interestingly, all the semifinalists are Top 5 players. (source: Reuters)