KEY POINTS:
New Zealand tennis No 1 Marina Erakovic bounded into the women's doubles quarterfinals at the US Open in New York today.
Erakovic and Croatia's Jelena Kostanic Tosic brushed aside Tatiana Poutchek, of Belarus, and Australian Anastasia Rodionova 6-3 6-3 in their third round match at Flushing Meadows.
She is the first New Zealander to reach the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam event since Julie Richardson in the doubles at the Australian Open in 1994.
Erakovic, 20 and ranked No 52 in the world in the singles, was eliminated in the opening round of the singles.
Today's win came on the back of aggressive play by Erakovic and Kostanic Tosic, who paired together for the first time for the US Open.
" I think we served well. We returned well at the beginning and they changed it up a little bit and we tried to counter that," said Erakovic, whose world doubles ranking stands at No 109.
"I tried to come forward and dominate. I always try and be aggressive on the returns and come into the net and to get time to come in you have to have a good return - that's something I've always done in doubles."
The quarterfinal, likely to be played on Wednesday morning (NZT), will pit Erakovic and Kostanic Tosic against the 10th seeds, American Lisa Raymond and Sam Stosur, of Australia, who accounted for Ukrainian sisters Alona and Kateryna Bondarenko, seeded seventh, in straight sets.
"It's exciting, it's my first quarters (at a Grand Slam," Erakovic said.
" We've got an interesting next match. Our opponents will be seeded, but we'll be giving it a really good shot."
The prizemoney from her first round singles loss and the minimum quarterfinals finish in the doubles will take her tournament earnings for the year over the US$200,000 ($287,645) mark.
- NZPA
