Serena Williams’ domination of the most one-sided rivalry in tennis continued as the American hammered Maria Sharapova to reach the Australian Open semi-finals. Neither has Novak Djokovic.
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“I know Aga really well”. She added that she needed to win two matches against great players who are extremely tough. The Pole is into her second semifinal in Melbourne after taking out No. 10-seed Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-3 on Tuesday and has now made the semifinals or better at a Slam the last five years.
The tiebreaker will be tricky. The six-time Australian Open champion has never lost in Melbourne after reaching the quarterfinals. “I feel exhausted. But when you are on court you have to fight, you have to run, you have to be there, and today I don’t have the good feeling to play good tennis, the good mentality to play more aggressive or try to play a little bit better than I play”.
It was a typically tight first set against her long-time rival but she finally came through after a brutal 55 minutes. “There’s a lot of tension”.
Murray and Soares will play the winners of a later semifinal Thursday between Daniel Nestor and Radek Stepanek and Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers in Saturday’s final.
Australian-born Johanna Konta, who now has British citizenship, plays a women’s semifinal against Angelique Kerber on Rod Laver Arena after defending champion Serena Williams takes on Agnieszka Radwanska.
There had been concerns that Williams may have been rusty coming into the first Grand Slam of the year after cutting her season short following her US Open disappointment.
Radwanska sunk to 0-9 against Williams in a rematch of the 2012 Wimbledon final.
This year, the 24-year-old came in ranked World No. 47 and defeated Venus Williams and Ekaterina Makarova en route to her first Slam semifinal.
Williams has won every semifinal she’s contested at Melbourne Park, and gone on to win the title each time. “She’s been playing really well towards the end of the year, and already this year she’s been very consistent. She was playing unbelievably good”.
We played two grand slam finals previous year.
Graf was the last German player to win the women’s title in Australia, in 1994, and Kerber is asking for some advice. Against Williams, she had three, and seven double-faults.
Sharapova broke to open the match but Williams held in the third game and broke back to level at 2-2.
While her record against Williams is not yet on the scale of Sharapova, it is still dismal.
Sharapova plans for a light February: Nothing is set in stone, but Sharapova said she plans on dedicating the month to getting her forearm healthy.
“I’m excited to be in another final”.
“Oh you always (have sympathy)”, she told CNN.
The 34-year-old Federer used a full array of shots, including some vintage backhands, in his 48 winners, to avenge two losses to Berdych at Wimbledon in 2010 and the 2012 U.S. Open.
Djokovic eased past Kei Nishikori 6-3 6-2 6-4 while Federer beat Tomas Berdych 7-6 (7/4) 6-2 6-4. Williams will be able to keep Radwanska on defence and will not let the Pole turn the rallies against her. Even if Radwanska does make some tricky returns, Williams can still rip the ball from the awkward positions Radwanska will put her in.
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When it comes to the men’s match, Federer is said to have taken a lot of heat from Djokovic ever since Djokovic beat him out in rankings.
