“It can happen with everyone,” said Olympic champion Elena Dementieva, who moved into the fourth round.
Jelena Jankovic also won during the day. In night matches delayed more than an hour by rain, No. 12 Marion Bartoli defeated No. 23 Lindsay Davenport 6-1, 7-6 (3), and No. 15 Patty Schnyder beat Magdalena Rybarikova 7-6 (4), 6-4. Also, former Open champion Marat Safin lost to No. 15 Tommy Robredo, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-0.
Kuznetsova, who won the Open in 2004 and finished second last year, had trouble fending off Srebotnik’s frequent charges to the net.
Srebotnik fell to her knees a split-second before Kuznetsova’s last shot sailed over the baseline. After beating Serena Williams in the French Open this year, the 28th-ranked Slovenian had another reason to celebrate, having gone farther than ever before at Flushing Meadows.
Second-seeded Jankovic won another sneaker squeaker, playing 28 points in the last game to finish off Zheng Jie 7-5, 7-5.
Jankovic came out full of energy, showing no ill effects of a bad left leg that cramped after she played Wednesday. She bounded back and forth and, in her trademark style, often came to screeching stops while doing the splits to reach shots.
“As long as I’m doing the splits, that means I’m healthy,” she said. “When I’m not doing the splits, you know there’s something wrong.”
“I’m not too sure about my body if I go into a split, who knows if I’ll come back up?” she said.
Still waiting for that elusive big win, Jankovic is trying to reach her first Grand Slam final. She needs three more wins— with Justine Henin retired, Maria Sharapova hurt, Ivanovic out and the Williams sisters in the opposite bracket, this figures to be her best chance.
Jankovic needed more than two hours to beat the 37th-ranked Zheng after playing for nearly three hours in the second round.
getCSS("3053751")Slide show
No Grand Slam finals, but Jankovic will be No. 1
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Notebook: Sharapova to relinquish No. 1 ranking
