Victoria Azarenka of Belarus makes a backhand return to Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016.
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Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley presents Maria Sharapova with a cake commemorating a major milestone: she reached 600 career singles wins after her victory in the third round.
Victoria Azarenka surged into an Australian Open quarter-final against Angelique Kerber on Monday, with the odds heavily stacked in the two-time champion’s favour as she guns for a third Grand Slam title.
Azarenka would already be up a break in the first set, and is able to use her serve to help her set up her heavy groundstrokes to control this point, and gets the passing shot past the Czech en route to a 6-2 win in the opening frame. When she heard Denver had beaten the New England Patriots 20-18 in the AFC championship, she shouted “Yesss!!” – stepping back and raising both arms, “I’m so happy now”.
“I was so nervous the whole morning, I didn’t watch”.
“You have these guys, these Grand Slam champions, guys that have been playing great, and to beat one of them for the first time at a Slam, doesn’t matter if that was on Court 15 or whichever court, it has a very concrete sort of message to the work I’m putting in and how I’m going about things”, he said.
February’s Super Bowl shapes as a no-lose scenario for the Belarusian, whose sporting interests also include Carolina quarterback Cam Newton, whose Panthers will square off against the Broncos in the NFL’s title match. “I’m sure she’s going to do the same”.
Kerber will now face Victoria Azarenka, who enjoyed another dominant display over Barbora Strycova to reach the quarter finals.
It’s the first time Kerber has reached the quarter-finals in Melbourne and she said: “It was really tough match today”.
Her opponents have noticed.
“I played smart, I played aggressive and I took my opportunities”.
“Maybe it’s a good omen”. I’m nearly win the match.
“It was so hard to concentrate because I could see she was in pain”.
Monfils beat Russia’s Andre Kuznetsov in four sets, the No. 23 seed winning 7-5 3-6 6-3 7-6, after the unseeded Russian took the second set on Margaret Court Arena and forced a tiebreak in the fourth before Monfils prevailed.
It paid off for Raonic, who beat Wawrinka 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-3 on Monday to secure a spot in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open. More impressive still is that the world No. 16 has done it all in straight sets.
The struggle sent the world No. 1 into a 27th consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal, tying him on joint second with Jimmy Connors.
Djokovic, who committed an unprecedented century of unforced errors, only escaped after more than 4½ hours of battle.
“I don’t think I’ve had any number close to 100”, he said. “I couldn’t be happier”. Let the best team win.
Djokovic improved his record to 36 wins in his last 37 matches at Melbourne Park, and will next play No. 7 Kei Nishikori, who beat No. 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 with a more conventional style of game.
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Murray’s wife, Kim, is due to have their first baby next month and he promised he’d fly back to Britain at any time if she went into labor – even if it meant missing a chance at a drought-breaking fifth Australian final.
