18th time lucky? Sharapova takes aim at Serena streak

The business end of the Australian Open begins in earnest on Tuesday when top seed Serena Williams faces old rival Maria Sharapova for a place in the semi-finals in a repeat of last year’s title match.

Six-times champion Serena Williams has stormed into the Australian Open semi-finals, extending her run of dominance over Maria Sharapova to 18 matches.

Early on Tuesday it seemed Sharapova might challenge Williams: She broke Williams’s serve to open the match and held serve for a 2-0 lead before Williams won the next three games.

The last time she managed a win was at the WTA Tour Championships in 2004 and her last Grand Slam success over the American was in the Wimbledon final earlier that year.

In her fourth-round victory against No. 12 Belinda Bencic, she had a career-high 21 aces.

“She is very solid, like most Spanish players and I knew everything would come back to my side”.

“I tried to be aggressive, focus on my serve”.

Stan Wawrinka, 2014 champion, could not overcome illness, which has dogged him for the last 10 days, as the fourth seed lost to Milos Raonic, 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-3.

A chink of light for Sharapova is that Williams can sometimes struggle under the weight of expectation as shown by her shock exit at last year’s US Open when she had been expected to close out a calendar grand slam.

“She needs Serena to be at a lower level, that’s a start”, ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernandez said. “He’s one of those guys who make you a better player, he’s beaten me on the biggest courts around the world”. I’ve done everything that I didn’t want to do, you know.

Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska hits a return during her Australian Open match against Spain’s …

“I think if you’re serving maybe 180 (km/hr) against somebody else compared to Serena, that’s an ace”, Sharapova said.

Williams has yet to drop a set down under and had only dropped eight total games in her previous three matches. “But in this situation, I don’t have anything to lose because I’m just here – every tournament for me is just a bonus at this point in my career”. I don’t have to win this tournament or any other tournament for as long as I live.

As for five time grand slam victor Sharapova is eyeing to repeat her Australian Open 2008 success story once again.

“When you’re playing someone who’s so great, you have to come out with a lot of fire and intensity”, she added.

Before her match, Williams was keeping an eye on Sharapovas match and noted that she “had a really good win today.”. “This is one of the few stadiums where I feel so welcome”. She broke back to make it level-pegging at 2-2 as the Russian’s serve faltered. It appeared as though Sharapova would be at least competitive in the match, if not have a shot at the upset win to break her 17 match losing streak against Williams.

“No, but that’s good”, she said. “But I didn’t start like that so I made a decision to play the way that got me to the quarter-finals”.