Kei Nishikori of Japan celebrates after defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016.
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During his on-court interview Tuesday, Federer, who is adored by Australian tennis fans, was asked why he hadn’t shown off his “sneak attack” at the Australian Open.
The three most decorated players in Melbourne in the Open era all won in straight sets Tuesday, with Williams starting the roll with a 6-4, 6-1 win in a rematch of last year’s final.
“We played two Grand Slam finals a year ago”.
“Williams twice had treatment for the after-effects of food poisoning before securing an 18th successive win over the five-times grand slam champion”.
“When I play her, I know automatically I have to step up my game”, said the American, who hit 31 winners – 20 more than Sharapova. “Hopefully (I’ll) play my best tennis, otherwise I’ll be in big trouble”.
Nonetheless she bossed Sharapova around the court, grabbing a 5-0 advantage as the Russian surrendered meekly in the second set. “It’s not like I think about, ‘What can I do worse?'” Sharapova said.
The 28-year-old Djokovic is through to his 29th Grand Slam semi-final and sixth at Melbourne Park, where he has lifted the trophy five times. There is no reason I shouldn’t be looking to improve and to getting my game in a better position than any previous round. I didn’t know his ranking was as high as it was, to be quite honest.
After Federer won their first four matches and 13 of their first 19, Djokovic began to even the ledger during his famous 2011 season which is widely regarded as one of the best in history, where the Serbian took his game to the next level after capturing the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles.
After his long five-setter against Gilles Simon, when he made a startling 100 unforced errors, Djokovic cut that down 27 in a faster-paced, shorter-rally encounter against Nishikori, a U.S. Open finalist in 2014. In important points and moments I managed to stay composed and make him play an extra shot. She doesn’t give you many angles. “I have to be the one to dictate”.
Men’s q-finals: Roger Federer (Sui) bt Tomas Berdych (Cze) 7-6 (7-4) 6-2 6-4, Novak Djokovic (Srb) bt Kei Nishikori (Jpn) 6-3 6-2 6-4. “Tomas has caused me a lot of problems over the years”, Federer said.
“I’ve been playing this whole week aggressively, but I didn’t start out playing that way today”, said Serena. The signs are not good for Radwanska, despite her convincing 6-1, 6-3 win over Spanish 10th seed Carla Suarez on Rod Laver Arena. The tournament became the second Grand Slam to offer equal prize money for the men’s and women’s singles champion in 2001, and at $2.4 million now ranks third behind the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, but ahead of the French Open.
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Sania and Ivan Dodig of Croatia beat Kazakh-Pakistani duo of Yaroslava Shvedova and Aisam-ul Haq Qureshi 7-5, 6-2 to meet Paes and Martina Hingis in the quarters.
