Serena Williams sounded an ominous warning to her French Open rivals yesterday by racing into the last eight with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Russia's Dinara Safina.
The US player needed just 77 minutes to wrap up the fourth round tie against a shell-shocked Safina who was powerless in the face of the Williams onslaught.
The win could set up a potential quarter-final showdown against title-holder and top seed Justine Henin tomorrow.
PHOTO: AP
The Belgian was scheduled to play her fourth round tie against Austria's Sybille Bammer later yesterday.
Williams blasted out of the blocks against Safina, the 10th seed and sister of Marat Safin, the former men's world No. 1.
She broke her opponent's first two service games to go 4-0 up and wrapped up the set 6-2 in 36 minutes.
The second set was a different story with both players struggling to hold on to their serves and Safina, a quarter-finalist here last year, at times matching Williams for power off her groundstrokes.
The pair exchanged two service breaks each to get to 3-3 but in the following game Williams made the difference with a third service break before moving 5-3 ahead.
There was no way back for Safina who had her service broken for the sixth time in the match as Williams returned to the French Open quarter-finals for the first time since 2004, the last time she played at Roland Garros.
Amelie Mauresmo was unable to do what another two-time Grand Slam champion hampered by an injury, Maria Sharapova, managed on Saturday: Deal with pain, set aside a lack of proper preparation and beat a less-experienced opponent.
The fifth-seeded Mauresmo blew a 3-0 lead in each set and lost to No. 25 Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-6 (3), the latest in a string of early exits at Roland Garros for the Frenchwoman.
On the mens' side, double defending champion Rafael Nadal took his Roland Garros record to 17-0 and celebrated his birthday in style by reaching the French Open fourth round on Saturday.
Nadal, 21, eased past compatriot Albert Montanes 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 and will face former world No. 1 and former Wimbledon and US Open winner, Lleyton Hewitt for a place in the quarter-finals.
Hewitt, the 14th seed, defeated 20th seeded Finn Jarkko Nieminen 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 to set up a repeat of last year's last 16 clash, which Nadal won in four sets on his way to a second successive title.
Nadal insisted he won't underestimate the gutsy Australian against whom he trails 4-2 in career meetings and especially after their most recent meeting in the Hamburg semi-finals where the Spaniard dropped the first set before going through.
"Against Hewitt, it will be difficult," Nadal said.
If Nadal comes through the test against Hewitt, he could eventually meet 20-year-old Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals.
But the highly-rated, sixth seeded Serb struggled to reach the last 16 and needed more than four hours to clinch a 7-6 (7/2), 2-6, 3-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 win over French wildcard Olivier Patience.
When Paddy Dwyer arrived in China in 1976, crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of him and his companions — the first Western soccer team to play in the country. China was emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and on the brink of market reforms that would take the country from economic stagnation to explosive growth. “All we could see was lines of people running beside our bus, trying to look in the windows, to see their first visual of a white person,” he said. “It was all bicycles,” he said. “There were very few cars to be seen.” Dwyer,
Jannik Sinner continued his quest to become the first man in history to win five Masters 1000 tournaments in a row with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Danish qualifier Elmer Moller at the Madrid Open on Sunday. The world leader extended his winning streak to 19 matches, a run that began early March in Indian Wells, and he has captured 24 consecutive victories at the Masters 1000 level, dating back to the Paris Masters last October. Searching for a maiden title at this level on clay, Sinner advanced to the round of 16 at the Caja Magica with a 77-minute performance against
Some of Clearlake Capital Group’s largest investors are growing increasingly concerned about how much time the company’s co-founders are spending on sports investments as they have struggled to complete the fundraising for the private equity firm’s latest flagship fund. One of Clearlake’s co-founders, Behdad Eghbali, has been spending what some investors described as a disproportionate amount of time on the firm’s investment in Chelsea Football Club in recent months. Now, co-founder Jose E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are nearing a record US$3.9 billion deal to acquire the San Diego Padres. That personal investment by Feliciano has set off the latest
A new NZ$683 million (US$404 million) stadium that was a symbol of Christchurch’s struggle to rebuild after a deadly earthquake struck the New Zealand city is to host its first match tomorrow in front of a sellout crowd. A magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed 185 people in February 2011 and toppled or damaged buildings, including the city’s old Lancaster Park. The stadium, which hosted international rugby and cricket, and was home to the Canterbury Crusaders, was badly damaged and never reopened. It was bulldozed in 2019 and turned into sports fields, leaving the Crusaders without a permanent home. Government funding for a new stadium was
RSS