The third seed is the latest high profile casualty after Serena Williams was defeated by Ana Ivanovic in the fourth round yesterday.
In arguably one of Cibulkova's greatest wins of her career so far, she advances to the quarter-finals after a 3-6 6-4 6-1 win in the fourth round.
Now, we all hate it when a top seed perhaps infers their injury played some part in their defeat, but Sharapova did take an injury time out in between the second and third sets for treatment on what was said to be an injury to her left hip. While her movement was some what affected, this wasn't the reason why the Russian lost.
The first set, as the scoreboard shows, was quite clearly led by Sharapova, Cibulkova's game was some what up and down at first. However, the Slovak was playing very consistently in the second and third sets, taking control of the court with a strong forehand, moving very quickly, and attacking Sharapova's second serves.
In the second set Cibulkova nailed eight winners and forced the struggling Sharapova into seven errors. The Russian began losing control of her forehand and committed 15 unforced errors.
Sharapova fell behind 5-0 in the second, but she managed to claw back to 5-4. The 24-year-old Cibulkova didn't lose faith and closed out the set with an impressive inside forehand winner.
The Slovak finished the third set with four unforced errors to 19 from Sharapova, who committed three straight forehand errors to lose the match.
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