Friday, January 18, 2013

Ivanovic conquers Jankovic at Australian Open

Two former world number 1 players, both from Serbia, engaged yesterday in third round match in Melbourne that turned out to have surprisingly high quality. I say "surprisingly" because neither player has been in top form consistently in a long time. But they brought their best games when they had to face each other (though Jankovic was dealing with an injury), and there was a bit of a "tennis time machine" feel about the event.

Ivanovic won, 7-5, 6-3, and will play Li Na in the next round.

Zheng Jie served for the match against Julia Goerges, but was broken, and Goerges went on to win, 6-3, 1-6, 7-5. Angelique Kerber, in fine form (and celebrating her 25th birthday), ended the run of wild card Madison Keys, defeating her 6-2, 7-5, and Ekatarina Makarova beat Marion Bartoli. Valeria Savinykh, the last qualifier standing, lost to Kirsten Flipkens,

2006 champion Maria Sharapova defeated Venus Williams 6-1, 6-3. Williams was able to break Sharapova only once. Sharapova, who won her first two matches 6-0, 6-0, is in very good form.

The dramatic results yesterday, however, occurred in doubles competition. Second seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka lost to--drum roll, please--Kimiko Date-Krumm and Arantxa Parra Satonja. Third seeds Lisa Raymond and Maria Kirilenko also lost--to Australians Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua.

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