2013 Australian Open: Day Seven highlights

Mid-tournament Sunday at the Australian Open and a lot more tennis is left on the cards. With just 16 players remaining in both the men’s and women’s draw, the action gets tighter and tighter as more challenging players emerge on both sides of the net.

Upsets, Upstarts and More

The morning session at the Rod Laver Arena first saw the Russian upstart Ekaterina Makarova take on fifth-seeded German Angelique Kerber and comfortably gain her passage through to her second consecutive Australian Open quarter-finals with a straight-set win. Chinese world number one and 2011 Australian Open finalist Li Na too powered her way into the last eight with a strong mastery over 18^th seeded German Julia Georges. Na, who was down an early break in the first race, took it in the tie-break before clean-sweeping the second, 6-1.

But where Makarova was the successful upstart, Japanese number one seed Kei Nishikori struggled to find his rhythm and momentum against Spanish David Ferrer. Although Nishikori started strong against the Spaniard in the match’s opening stages, even managing to out-smart Ferrer a few times with good and powerful ground-strokes, he wasn’t able to match to Ferrer’s athleticism. Compounded by knee problems further along in the match, Nishikori’s agonies weren’t prolonged for that long in the 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 encounter.

“C’mon” goes the Grunting Queen

If there has been one tennis player who has been able to hold onto her momentum for this long in the Australian Open, it has been Maria Sharapova. In her match against Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium that lasted just over an hour minutes, the Russian world no.2, Maria Sharapova took her bagel count for the tournament to three in four matches. With the loss of just five games this far, Maria Sharapova remains the girl-in-yellow to watch out for a probable place on the second Saturday.

Eastern Europeans Galore

Tomas Berdych wrapped up a simple straight-set victory of South African Kevin Anderson. In Nole’s quarter in the Australian Open draw, Berdych displayed some solid tennis performances towards the end of the last season, qualifying for a second straight year in a row for the world tour finals. At present, he’s enjoying a fit start to the season, a factor that’ll come into account against his quarter-final against Djokovic on Monday, considering the fourth-round marathon that the latter had had to endure.

Janko Tipsarevic may have won the Chennai Open convincingly but his dreams to carry the steam to Australia fizzled out abruptly. Trailing two sets to love and 5-1 in the second to Spaniard Almagro, Tipsarevic withdrew from the match, thus ending his dream-run of eight consecutive wins for this season. Another Serbian casualty was of former world no. 1 and 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic who was superbly outwitted by Polish world no. 4 Agnieska Radwanksa. The first match of the evening season, Ana Ivanovic was unable to trouble the Pole who raced to comfortable leads in both sets, before wrapping the match without much ado.

The 2013 Australian Open Marathon

As electrifying as the atmosphere was before the start of the second night session match between world no. 1 Novak Djokovic and 17^th seeded Swiss, Stanislas Wawrinka, no one could have predicted the encounter to be such a highly-intensified marathon. Untroubled in his opening three rounds, Djokovic managed to win just one game in the opening set with Wawrinka firing off on both flanks.

The second set seemed to go the same way as Wawrinka broke Nole to take a 4-1 lead, before Nole slowly evened it out for 5-5. A crucial hold and a pivotal break later, it was one set all and from there on, the match seemed to tilt the Serb’s way. An early break of the third set allowed Nole to pocket it for a 2-set to one lead, though Wawrinka’s inspired performance in the fourth – in spite of cramps and niggles – allowed him to level the match at 2-sets all in the fourth set tie-break.

Though in the fifth, Wawrinka faced numerous chances to break the Djokovic’s serve, even breaking him once, he wasn’t able to make the best of his opportunities. With fitness issues causing a problem for Wawrinka as the match progressed well into the fifth set, it was Nole who held onto his nerves, managing to stave off Wawrinka in the 22^nd game to win the set and thereby, the match.

Special mention to Nick Kyrgios, junior Australian boys’ champion who will be crowned as the top-seed in the boys’ rankings on Monday after an impressive performance in last week’s concluded junior boys’ international tennis event.