2013 Australian Open: Day Nine Highlights
Few days remain before tennis moves from Down Under to other locales. But before the action winds up, the thrall of these last few days has more brought to life the passion that the sport evokes. Tuesday, Day Nine of the Australian Open saw four quarter-final encounters, the first of the two-days of quarter-final action, each more overwhelming than the other.
Men’s Quarter-final
Fourth seeded David Ferrer took on Davis Cup team-mate Nicholas Almagro in the first of the two men’s quarter-finals scheduled for today. In the first two sets, Almagro broke early and went to take both sets 6-4. The third set was no different and while serving for the match at the 10th game, Ferrer broke Almagro back and went on to win the set 7-5. The fourth set saw Almagro serving for the match and again Ferrer came out fighting with two resounding re-breaks and eventually took the set in the tie-break.
The heat and the tricky playing conditions soon took a toll on Almagro who had to take a medical time-out during the fourth set and Ferrer took complete charge of the match thereafter, going on to win the fifth-set 6-2 with service breaks.
Prior to the start of play in the evening session, everyone wondered whether Nole would be fit to take on the hulking Czech Tomas Berdych, after the marathon match against Swiss Stan Wawrinka. But after seeing Nole win the first set 6-1, a complete turnaround from his previous game, everyone’s doubts about Nole’s fitness and endurance faded. Berdych did make a decent comeback in the second set winning it 6-4, though Nole continued to be the better player of the two as he went on to thump the world no. 7 by winning the third and fourth set 6-1 and 6-3 respectively to enter his third straight Australian Open semi-finals.
Women’s Quarter-final
Chinese no.1 Li Na took to the Rod Laver Arena in the first of the day’s women’s quarter-final showdowns against Polish fourth seed Agnieska Radwanksa. Although she was broken by Radwanksa in the early stages of the first set, Li Na however was comfortably able to break Radwanksa before winning the set 7-5. The second set was however vastly different as she went on to dominate Radwanksa from the start, before finishing the set and consequentially the match with a decisive score of 6-3.
These days when Maria Sharapova takes to the Australian Open courts, it’s all about bagels and breadsticks. The world no.2, who has become the critics’ favourite to lift her second Australian Open Championship trophy, though didn’t provide us with any bagels or breadsticks, was overwhelming enough for her countrywoman Ekaterina Makarova, winning the match 6-2, 6-2. Her count of games dropped remains at nine, a record in any case, if she continues to hold onto the same momentum for the remainder of the tournament.
Doubles and then Mix some
Seeded 12th for the Australian Open, the Williams sisters lost to the top-seeded Italian pair of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in a tough three-setter in their quarter-final match. Unseeded Australian pair of Casey Dellacqua and Ashleigh Barty continued their sublime run in the tournament, triumphing over the Russian-Czech pair of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova in straight sets. The third women’s doubles quarter-final match saw the Chinese-American pair of Saisai Zheng and Varvara Lepchenko defeat the Chinese-Spanish pair of Zheng Jie and Nuria Llagostera Vives.
In the men’s doubles, third seeded pair of Granollers and Lopez advanced to the semi-finals, defeating the unseeded French-Brazilian pair of Paire and Bellucci while the 11th seeded pairing of Verdasco and Marrero was upset by an unseeded Dutch pairing of Sijsling and Haase.
The second seeded pairing of Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina lost to an unheralded Aussie pairing of Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden in straight sets in the evening session, in the mixed doubles second round. The morning session saw the fifth seeded Indo-Russian pair of Bhupathi and Petrova defeat the Slovakian-Serbian partnership of Srebotnik and Zimonijic. The American-Belarusian pairing of Huber and Mirnyi, seeded fourth, was upset by the unseeded Spanish pair of David Marrero and Llagostera Vives. In a clash between two unseeded teams in the mixed doubles second round, the Kazakh-Uzbek pair of Yaroslava Shvedova and Denis Istomin defeated the Chinese-Mexican team-up of Zi Yan and Santiago Gonzalez.