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Andrea Petkovic upsets world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in the fourth round of Miami. Despite the loss, Wozniacki will hold the No. 1 ranking at least through April 18, running her total to 27 weeks. The 20-year-old Dane has won a tour-high 21 matches this year (tied with Peng Shuai), but has played seven events and looked exhausted today. She won the Indian Wells title prior to Miami.

“Petkovic deserved the win because she played a little better at the crucial times and made the fewest mistakes,” her coach and father, Piotr Wozniacki told Ekstra Bladet. “And then she was probably a little fresher than Caroline. She can not win everything. She’s no robot, and she was tired in the third set. Therefore she could not play as she wanted, and generally she played too many short balls at Petkovic.”

Caroline Wozniacki, who will next play at Charleston, added, ”I lost a match. It happens. If she had a plan, good for her.”—Matthew Cronin

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Juan Martin Del Potro runs his 2011 record to 20-5 after upending No. 4 Robin Soderling 6-3, 6-2 in Miami. The 2009 U.S. Open champion scored his first win over a Top 10 player in 16 months and will next face American Mardy Fish, whom he beat last month in the semifinals of Delray Beach.

“It’s a long road to come back and being in the top again, but I am trying to be calm,” said No. 51 Del Potro. “The people say, ‘You should be in the top very soon’ or something like this, but it’s a long road. I’m working every day, improving very, very slowly. Maybe for the second part of the year, I will be ready for fight against the Top 10 players.”—Matthew Cronin

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Andy Murray is considering hiring eight-time Grand Slam champion Ivan Lendl as his coach, the Daily Mail reports. Lendl recently began to get involved in tennis again by playing a couple of senior exhibitions. He has never coached on the ATP tour, but apparently reached out to Murray, who is 0-3 since falling in the Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic.—Matthew Cronin

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Kim Clijsters participated in a commercial to promote the China Open this week, although she recently said she would not play in Asia this fall due to worries about the radiation leaks from the Japanese nuclear reactors. The China Open, which is played in October, is a mandatory event on the WTA tour.
 
“The WTA is monitoring everything to see how it’s going.” Clijsters said. “But to me, if I decide to play or not play Beijing, it is because of the family situation, obviously. I don’t like to go without Jada, but also don’t want to take her for a one week trip to fly that long. Because obviously at that time we come back from the US Open and we have been gone for a long time, so she goes back to school. So there is a lot of things as a mother that make it sometimes a little bit tougher to choose my schedule.”—Matthew Cronin

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KEY BISCAYNE, Florida (AP)—With her dubious No. 1 ranking secure for at least three more weeks, Caroline Wozniacki’s taking a break.

Her enforced vacation began Monday when she lost in the fourth round at the Sony Ericsson Open to Andrea Petkovic of Germany, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3.

“I’m just going to take a few days of rest now,” Wozniacki said. “I need that, you know—maybe on the beach, get some of the tan lines off.”
 
Wozniacki’s play paled next to Petkovic’s at pivotal moments. Leading 5-4 in the opening set, Wozniacki failed to convert three set points. As the final set slipped away, she angrily kicked at a ball—and failed to make solid contact.

That was one of her many unforced errors.

The ranking system draws criticism because Wozniacki has been on top for nearly six months, despite never winning a Grand Slam tournament. She’ll remain No. 1 through at least April 18, but with Serena and Venus Williams skipping Key Biscayne for health reasons, Wozniacki missed a chance to strengthen her claim to the top spot.

“I’m not thinking about that,” she said. “Of course I would have loved to have won today, but it didn’t happen. I’m not going to dig a hole for myself, or dig a grave. I will just take a few days of rest, and I’m prepared for the clay season.”

Petkovic, ranked a career-best 23rd, hit an ace to end the first set and another on match point. She waved her arms as she danced at the net to celebrate her biggest victory.

“It’s the Petko Dance,” she later said with a smile.

No. 16-seeded Maria Sharapova scored her first win over a top-five player in more than three years, beating No. 4 Samantha Stosur 6-4, 6-1. Sharapova, a two-time runner-up at Key Biscayne, earned a berth in the quarterfinals against No. 26 Alexandra Dulgheru.

On the men’s side, two-time champion Roger Federer and top-ranked Rafael Nadal advanced to the fourth round. Federer, who slipped to third in the rankings last week, beat No. 32 Juan Monaco 7-6 (4), 6-4. Nadal, seeking his first Key Biscayne title, never faced a break point and defeated fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 6-3.

Wozniacki is tied for the tour lead in victories this year, and she earned her 14th career title a week ago at Indian Wells. But she has little history of success at Key Biscayne, where she has yet to reach the semifinals.

Content as always to stay behind the baseline, she doggedly battled Petkovic on a warm afternoon for 2 1/2 hours. But Wozniacki converted only five of 17 break-point opportunities.

“I had so many chances in my first set,” she said. “I had set points and I didn’t take them. Then the energy level dropped a little bit, and I lost.”

Petkovic became the first German woman to reach the tournament’s quarterfinals since Anke Huber in 2001. She’ll next face No. 6 Jelena Jankovic, who beat Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-1, 6-3.

Petkovic attributed her upset win to tactics—she varied the pace and occasionally charged forward.

“It was not like I played unbelievable,” she said. “It was more that I was able to stick to my game plan and I was playing clever. Most players think they can overpower Caroline. I think that’s the wrong approach, because she’s going to bring each ball back, so I tried to mix it up a little bit. Thankfully it worked.”

The Petko Dance dates to last year, when she unveiled it after beating Nadia Petrova in the first round of the U.S. Open.

“I wanted to get rid of it after the Open, but the fans said like, `Hey, we are just coming to see the dance, and you’re not doing it anymore.’ So I brought it back. But this is definitely the last tournament where it’s going to happen, and then I’m moving on to something else.”

There was no Sharapova Dance, but lots of fist-waggling from the three-time Grand Slam champion. Her trademark shriek accompanied almost every shot, and the decibel level rose as she closed out the win.

Sharapova has lost only 12 games in three matches after missing Key Biscayne in 2008-10 because of injuries.

“Since I haven’t played here in so many years, I feel like I owe it to my fans to play many matches here,” she told the crowd with a laugh.

She improved to 7-0 against Stosur, who was the French Open runner-up last year but is just 9-8—all on hardcourts—in 2011.

Andrea Petkovic upsets world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in the fourth round of Miami. Despite the loss, Wozniacki will hold the No. 1 ranking at least through April 18, running her total to 27 weeks. The 20-year-old Dane has won a tour-high 21 matches this year (tied with Peng Shuai), but has played seven events and looked exhausted today. She won the Indian Wells title prior to Miami.

“Petkovic deserved the win because she played a little better at the crucial times and made the fewest mistakes,” her coach and father, Piotr Wozniacki told Ekstra Bladet. “And then she was probably a little fresher than Caroline. She can not win everything. She’s no robot, and she was tired in the third set. Therefore she could not play as she wanted, and generally she played too many short balls at Petkovic.”

Caroline Wozniacki, who will next play at Charleston, added, ”I lost a match. It happens. If she had a plan, good for her.”—Matthew Cronin

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