World No. 5 Maria Sharapova rebounded in emphatic fashion, taking out unseeded American Lauren Davis 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-0 at the Australian Open here on Friday to record her 600th tennis career victory.
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Williams beat world number 58 Margarita Gasparyan 6-2, 6-1 and barely broke a sweat in doing so, while Sharapova was forced to battle past 12th seed Belinda Bencic.
The match-up between Sharapova and Williams would certainly be an exciting match, especially considering that it was Williams who bested the Russian in last year’s Australian Open final.
It was business as usual for women’s defending champion Serena Williams as she demolished her sister’s vanquisher Daria Kasatkina.
“It’s not like I think about what I can do worse”, said Sharapova when asked what she could do to snap the streak.
A win in the men’s final on 31 January would deliver an 18th grand slam title to 34-year-old Federer.
Margaret Court, the Australian great who won 24 Grand Slam singles titles and has a court named in her honor at Melbourne Park, was in the crowd watching Williams reach the quarterfinals of the season’s first major for the 10th time.
But overall it’s not constantly on my mind, how many matches I’ve won in my career.
Former champions Federer and Sharapova both advanced on Friday to the last 16 at the Australian Open while reaching personal milestones. “Although I’d love to sit on the beach and read a book and drink margaritas, after a few days I get bored”, Sharapova said.
“Oh boy. Is this like a friendly reminder that I’m getting older?”
“I’m very happy to play all these big players”.
It was this intense pressure from the youngster that had Sharapova on the back foot at many crucial moments – she was only able to convert 4/16 break points for the match.
Beginning the match on the front foot, Sharapova had no intentions of sticking around; she thumped the ball with great authority and maneuvering Davis from side-to-side, eventually hitting a victor or forcing an error out of her American counterpart.
Sharapova notched up her 600 career win, but was made to work hard at it, after being taken to three sets by USA’s Lauren Davis.
Instead of folding after losing such a tough point, Davis responded by winning the next two points and forcing Sharapova into a third set. “I just wanted to push the envelope again, just bring pop culture to tennis, kind of make it really fun”. “He just really opened the door to my dream”.
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The real hero of the night then was Daria Gavrilova – newly minted Green and Gold, she is a plucky fighter and partnered Kyrgios to a famous Hopman Cup victory, and scrapped her way into the fourth round with a 6-4 4-6 11-9 win. “I’ve been fooled too many times when I was a teenager”.
