Canada’s Milos Raonic defeats Monfils to reach Australian Open semi-finals

Azarenka reached her fifth quarter-final in Melbourne with her 6-2 6-4 win over unseeded Czech Barbora Strycova.

Azarenka captured the decisive break in the seventh game of the final set and saved two break points at 4-3 before closing out the match in one hour and 26 minutes.

“I am just a competitor and I want win every point and sometimes I feel I can have it, so I just fly”.

The No.7-seeded German will play the victor of the later quarterfinal between Britain’s Johanna Konta and Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai.

Big-serving Canadian Milos Raonic continued his run of red-hot form on Wednesday night, setting up an Australian Open semi-final against No. 2 seed Andy Murray with an impressive win over Frenchman Gael Monfils.

The Frenchman will play either No. 4 seed and 2014 Open champion Stan Wawrinka or 13th-seeded Canadian Milos Raonic in the quarter-finals.

Kerber broke Azarenka’s serve to end the match, hitting a cross-court backhand at the net to beat the Belarussian for the first time in seven career matches.

Kerber is into the final eight for the first time in nine attempts at the Australian Open and it follows a first-round loss here past year.

The no. 25 ranked player, who has played in 10 Australian Open tournaments, defeated Russian player, Andrey Kuznetsov, in the fourth round 7-5 3-6 6-3 7-6(4).