Nishikori into quarterfinals at Australian Open

Six-time champion Williams defeated No. 58-ranked Margarita Gasparyan 6-2, 6-1 in the next match on Rod Laver Arena.

Serena Williams had a slow start against Margarita Gasparyan, who broke her in the first game of the opening set. Djokovic, who won three Grand Slam tournaments in 2015 and has 11 titles overall, said that with this kind of success comes lofty expectations.

It was all offense, all the time for Maria Sharapova in her fourth-round Australian Open match on Sunday. I thought I played pretty well in the other matches.

“I had no that I was playing her next”, Williams said. “We’re not there yet and I hope we’ll never get there”.

“In the first set I was sore but after treatment I felt better”, he said.

Centuries are celebrated across the train tracks at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, but not in the unforced errors column at Rod Laver.

The fifth-seeded Sharapova beat 12th seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 7-5, 7-5.

Sharapova is the world’s highest-paid female athlete, but she just can’t buy a win against her long-time nemesis.

But the Russian, who is often regarded as the most mentally strong player on the WTA, quickly put the disappointment of missing her first match point behind her as she forced an error out of her Swiss counterpart, consequently earning herself another match point.

“I think she qualified at Wimbledon so she’s obviously made leaps and bounds since then, gained a lot of confidence”.

“I think the person who’s winning could definitely feel the pressure because there is a lot of expectations”, Williams said.

Williams also quickly turned her attention toward the upcoming showdown with Sharapova and said of her next opponent, via the Australian Open, “She had a really good win today, I really have nothing to lose we both are just doing the best that we can”. “Try not to pay too much attention on certain speculations, predictions and so forth, because that can cause a distraction that I don’t need”.

But Sharapova – the last teen to win a Grand Slam women’s singles title, aged 19 at the 2006 US Open – has been in good form at Melbourne Park, where she won in 2008, and ultimately her big-match experience proved decisive.

“You’re always trying to – always trying to improve”.

“I’m just really excited I want to hug the whole stadium”, Gavrilova told the crowd at Hisense Arena. “I’m focusing on just one game at a time and that I want to win another Grand Slam”. “Good thing is (Sears) is conscious, he’s speaking”, Sousa said.

Sharapova predicted Bencic would be a contender before long.

Sharapova won consecutive matches against Williams in 2004 at Wimbledon and the season-ending championships, but has lost all 17 meetings since. “It’s only going to be tougher, especially against Serena”. The record of 24 is held by Margaret Court.