Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia returns to Peng Shuai of China at the US Open tennis championships in New York, Aug 29, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

Peng Shuai of China serves to Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia at the US Open tennis championships in New York, Aug 29, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

NEW YORK - It took 2004 US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova nearly three hours to reach the third round on Thursday after beating Peng Shuai from China 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 in a tough match.

Peng met trouble at the beginning of the first set, finding herself down 5-0 before claiming her first game. The 27th seeded Russian held serve in the seventh game to knock down the first set 6-1.

Peng seemed to become a different player in the second set. The two players had eight close games, in which neither player was able to break. Peng finished an important break in the ninth game, and then served out the set 6-4.

The final set went on to 2-2, and Peng took chance to break once, but Kuznetsova broke back in the following game to level the score again. Peng had an unfortunate injury when she was down 5-4. The 27-year-old Chinese couldn't recover from the injury, losing the match 4-6 after saving one match point.