Federer thrashes Berdych to reach 12th Australian Open semi

The Swiss great continued to turn the screws, with two more service breaks in the final sets as he romped to a quickfire victory. He then served out the match at love.

The report alleged 16 players – all in the top 50, including one Grand Slam champion – were linked to match fixing, but that the sport’s governing bodies are either ignoring the issue and/or are woefully understaffed to fully monitor and respond to deal with it.

Tenth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro overcame a seriously slow start to rebound for a 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Russian-born Australian Daria Gavrilova and reach the quarterfinals.

Although Federer’s three-set victory did not end until after midnight, the 77-year-old Australian legend, known as “Rocket”, was in the president’s box taking it all in.

She’s now the first British player since Durie in 1983 to advance to the quarterfinals in Australia.

Tomic, the highest ranked Australian at 17, took umbrage at the remarks and then told reporters at Melbourne Park that as far as he was concerned Federer was “nowhere near” the level of world number one Novak Djokovic. He lost to the Czech star in the quarterfinals at both the 2012 U.S. Open and Wimbledon in 2010.

Six-time champion Williams followed it up with a 55-minute, 6-2, 6-1 win over Margarita Gasparyan.

Sharapova, the 2008 champion and a three-time runner-up, needed four set points to clinch the opening set, including two in the 10th game. But this time it was Verdasco who prevailed in five sets to avenge his heartbreaking loss in 2009 to Nadal.

Raonic held in the next game, clinching it with an ace, and Wawrinka saved a match point in his next service game.

But the Swiss Maestro’s Australian Open goal does not stop there as he faces Belgian David Goffin in the fourth round of the tournament.

Murray was playing at the same time at Margaret Court Arena, and after he finished his match, he rushed to the hospital to check on Sears, who is the father of his wife, Kim. “Tomas has caused me a lot of problems over the years”, Federer said.

He will play the victor of the fourth-round match between fourth-seeded Stan Wawrinka and No. 13 Milos Raonic.

It’s the second time in three years that she’s reached the final four at Melbourne Park, having advanced to the semifinals in 2014 when she lost to Dominika Cibulkova after beating defending champion Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals. In Australia, he became the first man to win 300 Grand Slam singles matches with his third-round win over Grigor Dimitrov.

Rod Laver finally got his Australian Open trophy, even if it took 47 years to do so. Will the ATP and ITF step up their efforts to search out and punish those players who fix matches, or will they just hope that their current efforts will be good enough?

Buoyed by a partisan capacity crowd of 15,000 at Rod Laver Arena, Gavrilova won the first set in 25 minutes.