World number five Maria Sharapova on Friday battled past American rival Lauren Davis in three sets to advance to the fourth round of the Australian Open.
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Maria Sharapova cruised through the first two rounds in the Australian Open in straight sets.
Federer on Friday became the only male tennis player ever to win 300 Grand Slam matches.
She is coming off a good victory against Kateryna Bondarenko, dispatching Ukrainian player 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 to set up her clash against Sharapova.
“I think it’s a proud number”, Sharapova said of her milestone after the match. Like when I reached 1,000 a year ago, it was a big deal for me. You look deeper into it, where it’s all happened and how. Yeah, so it’s very nice.
Serena Williams vs. Margarita Gasparyan: Margaritaville will be able to head to Margaritaville after this match. After holding her serve to love, she proceeded to break Davis three times in succession to race through the set 6-0 in just 31 minutes, and with it the match was hers.
The dismal record was extended at Melbourne Park a year ago when the 21-time Grand Slam champion swept past Sharapova in the final.
‘It was a great final a year ago against each other.
Seppi “is not overwhelmed by the occasion of the big courts, he knows how to play the big stage”.
The seventh-seeded Nishikori also reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open previous year and in 2012.
Maria has been serving better than she has in quite some time.
He improved to 5-0 against Dimitrov, a young Bulgarian with a similar style. “That’s a fact. But there’s nothing else that I’d rather do right now than keep doing that. I hope he’s OK”. But her concentration waned and Davis got her first break point of the match, with Sharapova’s backhand into the net levelling it at 2-2.
Hisense Arena was full of Aussie pride on Friday night after energetic Aussie Daria Gavrilova followed up her takedown of No. 6-seed Petra Kvitova with another upset, defeating No. 28-seed Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 4-6, 11-9. “I’m just really excited and I want to hug the whole stadium”, Gavrilova said in her on-court interview after the match.
With the pressure on, the diminutive American couldn’t cope with Sharapova’s return serve and sent a wild forehand over the baseline to go 3-1 behind.
In the next round, Sharapova will face 12th-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.
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Former finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has advanced to the fourth round at Melbourne Park with a 6-4, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (4) win over fellow Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Gavrilova will take on 10 seed Carla Suarez-Navarro of Spain, who led Russian Elizaveta Kulichkova 6-4, 2-0 before she had to retire.
