No surprises in Australian Open day 7

 

In today’s 4th round action, there were no real surprises. Amelie Mauresmo, the second seed, defeated the far more inexperienced Russian Evgenia Linetskaya with relative ease.

 

Linetskaya, appearing in her second Grand Slam, already did a great job by reaching the 4th round.

Mauresmo started off the quickest storming to a 4-1 lead, before having to take an injury break for, as she stated afterwards, a tightened up adductor.

 

After the injury break, Mauresmo managed to hold on to her lead taking the first set 6-2.

In the second set Linetskaya managed to make the goings tougher for Mauresmo, but despite that Mauresmo’s experience shone through making it a straight set win, winning the match in 2 sets, 6-2, 6-4.

 

In other 4th round action 5th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova also managed to take her match in 2 sets, defeating another young and coming Russian, Vera Douchevina. Douchevina, with one Junior Grand Slam under her belt from Wimbledon 2002, got off to a decent start leading Kuznetsova to 4-3.

 

Kuznetsova then managed to find her game and after taking 3 games in a row, win the first set 6-4. In the second set Kuznetsova only struggled in the early stages of the set, getting broken to 1-2, but then she really got rolling, finishing the match off with 5 games in a row to win 6-2.

 

7th seed Serena Williams however, found the going much tougher, having to go the distance to win her match against 11th seed Nadia Petrova, another Russian star.

 

After the first set it looked like Williams would go through without much effort, taking it 6-1. In the second set however, Williams didn’t play up to her abilities, making lots of unforced errors.

 

Petrova managed to make capitalize on Williams’s mistakes making it one set apiece at 6-3. In the final set Williams continued to make lots of unforced errors, with Petrova doing the exact same thing.

 

Williams just managed to edge out Petrova, despite playing very shaky tennis. In the end she scraped through, winning 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

 

The same accounted for 4th seed Maria Sharapova, but she, however, had her tough period at the start of the match. She conceded the first set 6-4 to experience campaigner Silvia Farina Elia of Italy, who was seeded 15th.

 

Sharapova, who had never reached past the 3rd round before this year, managed to get past her nerves and really managed to crush Farina Elia, giving her no illusions whatsoever of reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open for the first time in her long career. Sharapova won the match 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the end.

 

A round up of today’s matches:

 

Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS, 5) d. Vera Douchevina (RUS) 6-4, 6-2

Maria Sharapova (RUS, 4) d. Silvia Farina-Elia (ITA, 15) 4-6, 6-1, 6-2

Serena Williams (USA, 7) d. Nadia Petrova (RUS, 11) 6-1, 3-6, 6-3

Amelie Mauresmo (FRA, 2) d. Evgenia Linetskaya (RUS) 6-2, 6-4

 

This sets up the following quarterfinals in the bottom half of the draw:

 

Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS, 5) - Maria Sharapova (RUS, 4)

Serena Williams (USA, 7) – Amelie Mauresmo (FRA, 2)