Federer Eases Into Last Four At Open

She missed three with netted forehands, partially forced by Sharapova’s fearless second serve, but the fourth was converted with a cool forehand volley.

Sharapova had a career-high 21 aces in her previous win against No. 12 Belinda Bencic. He made just 27 unforced errors in the 2 hour, 7 minute match and clinched it on his third match point with a backhand cross-court winnner.

He’s now the oldest man since 1979 (Colin Dibley) to reach the Australian Open semis, where he’ll play either five-time champion Novak Djokovic or No. 7 Kei Nishikori.

Williams will face her long-time rival, Maria Sharapova, in the quarterfinals. Williams is 18-2 in their head-to-head encounters that began in 2004, and Sharapova hasn’t beaten Williams since the WTA season-ending championships that year.

Federer will continue his bid for a fifth title in Melbourne against Djokovic next. Zhang said that since Stosur, who played a lefthander in the first round, needed a practice player, she and her coach hit with the Australian.

When it was put to her that there is clearly a big gap between her and Sharapova, Williams said: “There is”.

True, the four-time Melbourne champ dominated all three of the pair’s meetings past year, but all were best-of-three affairs played on slow surfaces, which would have blunted Berdych’s massive power game.

“It’s motivating because she’s at a different level”, Sharapova said. It isn’t simply that she’s predisposed to beating Sharapova again and again; it’s that she’s predisposed to beating everybody, period. “I got myself into the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam. Then you can really focus on strategic plans and on the game”. “It’s only going to be tougher, especially against Serena”.

Intent on avenging his shock semi-final loss to Nishikori at the 2014 US Open, Djokovic registered the only break of the first set in the sixth game, then repeated the dose in the first game of the second to have his opponent rattled. “Too many unforced errors today”, Djokovic said after the match.

“I think he’s a great player”.

Djokovic was stretched more by the ball boy – literally in an arm bender behind his back – than by Nishikori. “I can beat all the guys on tour”, Federer told reporters. “She doesn’t give you many angles”. “So I think it will be a long match and it will be a good match to see where I am”.

“Tomas has caused me a lot of problems over the years, but it’s been a pleasure playing against him, he’s the type of player who makes you better. He’s just proving how great a player he is, how hard at this time it is to play him”, Berdych said.

The phenomenon played a role in Federer’s defeats at Wimbledon and the United States Open past year.

Monfils dropped his first set this year in a very acrobatic four-set win over Alexei Kuznetsov in the fourth round. “She makes you go back to the drawing board, not just for me, but for many other players”.

The lopsided nature of the supposed rivalry notwithstanding, we stayed glued to our seats, anyway, in part because Sharapova’s never-say-die attitude fueled our hope that the match would at least be competitive, and in larger measure because we understand the very essence of sports.