NEW YORK -- When ninth-seeded Daniela Hantuchova hit the ball long late in the second set, Tamarine Tanasugarn jumped for joy and ran toward the net in celebration.
When she got there, she realized she hadn't won. Not yet, anyway.
The unseeded Thai, who still needed one more game to upset the No. 9 seed at the U.S. Open on Friday, slinked back to the baseline to await Hantuchova's serve.
"I am very embarrassed right now," she said after winning her third round match 6-2, 6-4. "I was really laughing at myself."
The crowd laughed, too. But her opponent understood the excitement.
"That happens sometimes when you are focused on your game," Hantuchova said. "It was a funny situation."
Two games later, with the match definitely over, Tanasugarn again jumped for joy. However, she looked around first to make sure the win was for real. It was.
Early in the match, everything was working for Tanasugarn, who used a combination of hard-hitting forehands and backhands and an accurate serve to reach the fourth round.
"The most important thing is my game serve," said Tanasugarn, who was broken just once. "I try to move around and be aggressive."
That movement hurt Hantuchova, who beat Tanasugarn at the Sydney International earlier this year in their only other meeting.
"In Sydney, I played much, much better. I was more aggressive and more confident," said Hantuchova, who gave credit to Tanasugarn for improving her game.
"In the first set, she wasn't missing at all. Definitely she played much better than in Sydney," Hantuchova said.
Tanasugarn, ranked No. 39 in the world, kept Hantuchova running along the baseline throughout the match. That forced the lanky Slovak to commit 33 unforced errors.
"Today, I was just not good enough. It's as simple as that," Hantuchova said.
Tanasugarn broke Hantuchova in the first, fifth and seventh games to take the first set easily, despite being broken in the sixth.
In the second set, Hantuchova nearly reversed the momentum after being down an early break. But Tanasugarn held strong.
Tanasugarn will face fifth-seeded Amelie Mauresmo of France in the fourth round. Mauresmo beat Russian junior champion Maria Kirilenko earlier Friday.
"I think it will be pretty tough for her," Hantuchova added. "(Mauresmo) is really a tough player to beat."
Hantuchova reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open earlier this year and made the same run last year at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon.
Tanasugarn, who won her first title earlier this year at the Indoan Open, has never advanced past the fourth round at a Grand Slam event. But the Los Angeles-born Thai got that far five years in a row at Wimbledon before this year.
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