Serena Williams
extended her unbeaten record this season to 24-0 as she swept aside Spain’s
Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals of the Madrid Open on
Thursday. Williams had to save three match points in overcoming two-time
Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka on Wednesday, but had no such
trouble as she maintained her record of never having dropped a set against
Navarro in their six meetings.
The
19-time Grand Slam champion will face either fourth seed Petra Kvitova or
Irina-Camelia Begu in Saturday’s semi-finals. Defending champion Maria
Sharapova also reached the last four for a third consecutive year with a 6-1,
3-6, 6-3 win over Caroline Wozniacki. The Russian showed no ill effects early
on from her marathon win over Caroline Garcia on Wednesday as she raced through
the first set.
Sharapova
broke again in the first game of the second set, but a host of errors handed
the momentum back to the world number five and Wozniacki served out to take the
match into a deciding set. The third set followed a similar pattern, except
this time it was Wozniacki who failed to build on an early break as Sharapova’s
power from the baseline proved too much for the Dane.
And after
breaking in the penultimate game, Sharapova rounded off victory in just over two
hours on court to set up a semi-final meeting with either Lucie Safarova or
Svetlana Kuznetsova. On the men’s side Thomas Berdych continued his impressive
start to the clay court season as he marched into the quarter-finals with a
7-5, 6-2 win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Bulgaria’s
Grigor Dmitrov also reached the last eight just as in the Monte Carlo Masters
last month he disposed of Stanislas Wawrinka in the last-16 7-5 (7/5), 3-6, 6-5.
Vanguard soprts.
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