Serena, Venus fight on as Azarenka heads home

Melbourne- Serena Williams and sister Venus displayed all their fighting qualities to stay alive at the Australian Open yesterday along with defending champion Stan Wawrinka, but two-time champion Victoria Azarenka was knocked out.

World number one Serena battled back from a set down in a tense match against Spain’s Garbine Muguruza to win 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 and make the quarter-finals, staying on track for a 19th Grand Slam title and her sixth at Melbourne.

“I didn’t start out so well and she did everything she needed to do in the first set,” said Williams, who can lose her top ranking if she exits and Maria Sharapova wins the tournament. “I just decided to do my best, stay focused and relax. I think I’ve been playing for a long time. When I have to go up a level, I have to.”
Williams was coughing throughout the contest and confessed that “I’ve been a little sick in the last couple of days”.

She will next face last year’s finalist Dominika Cibulkova, the 11th seeded Slovak, who ended the comeback from injury of Azarenka in three tight sets.

Elder sister Venus’ late-career renaissance gathered pace as she rolled back the years to thump Polish sixth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3, 2-6, 6-1. She is now 9-0 for the season after winning the Auckland Classic.

It is the 34-year-old seven-time Grand Slam champion’s first major quarter since the 2010 US Open, having been diagnosed with the energy-sapping Sjogren’s Syndrome in 2011.

“The first set wasn’t easy, in the second she just started to play better, in the third I think I went into a trance. I just wanted to win,” she said.

Milos Raonic became the first Canadian man to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals in 47 years with a five-set win over Feliciano Lopez.

The eighth seed thundered down 30 aces as he made the last eight with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 6-3 win over 12th-seeded Lopez in 3hr5min on Hisense Arena.

Wawrinka ensured his passage by winning a thrilling fourth-set tiebreaker to down Spain’s tenacious Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-6, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6.

He will now play Japanese superstar Kei Nishikori, who was a class above dogged Spanish baseliner David Ferrer, easing through 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.

“He’s a tough, tough player. He improved a lot last year,” Wawrinka said of Nishikori. “He’s a great shotmaker, he can make winners. He doesn’t give you a lot of time.”

Meanwhile, the top-seeded American team of Bob and Mike Bryan fell with surprising speed, 7-6, 6-4 in 78 minutes, in the third round of men’s doubles to an unheralded pair, Eric Butorac of USA and Raven Klaasen of South Africa.