Like Serena Williams before him, Novak Djokovic moved into another Australian Open championship decider with a relatively untroubled semifinal win.
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Russia’s Maria Sharapova (left) reacts as she shakes hands with Serena Williams of USA after Williams won their quarter-final match at the Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park, Australia, on January 26, 2016.
Serena Williams won a convincing victory over Agnieszka Radwańska in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, defeating the Polish hopeful 6-0, 6-4 in Melbourne.
“She’s a great defender and a great girl”.
“It was also good for me mentally as I was able to recover when she fought back in the second”.
The Melbourne Park top seed, who next faces Agnieszka Radwanska, is proud to still be playing and at the top of her game. “I think in the second week of a Grand Slam you have nothing to lose, it doesn’t matter who you are playing”. “That’s not what you expect”. I was just playing literally a point at a time. “She makes you work, and that’s inspiring”.
The Russian showed character to storm back from 0-40 down to hold serve for 4-4 and was all over Williams’s serve in the next game, the American yelling “C’mon!” on successive points as she finally held.
Kerber was solid throughout and did what she needed to do, profiting from a raft of unforced errors from Konta, who too often went for too much.
“It will be a good match”, Williams said. “I didn’t think I would have done as well as I have”, she said.
“I just really wanted to focus on when I first walk out there to be ready to go from the first point, then that way I don’t necessarily have to play from behind”, she said, before adding for emphasis, “which I can do clearly, and I proved that past year”. Williams will be aiming for her 22nd major title, tying her with another German, Steffi Graf. Really showing she wants to win it. She’s doing everything right.
Victoria Azarenka, who took Williams to three sets in three classic matches previous year, has the only real chance of beating Williams at the tournament, but the Belarusian was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Germany’s Angelique Kerber 6-3 7-5.
Kerber and Konta play later Thursday, with whoever wins facing a huge obstacle to be crowned champion.
“You know, looking at the stats, it’s an easy thing”, Federer said.
Williams then spoke of a different approach to her tennis this year.
The first set was over within 22 minutes.
“I saw it yesterday against [Radwanska]”.
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While her record against Williams is not yet on the scale of Sharapova, it is still dismal. I haven’t played any lefties yet. In domination mode, Serena has cruised, dropping zero sets (and dropping no more than five games), finding her compass with her shots and averaging barely an hour on the court.
