Sharapova Holds Off Davis To Reach Aussie Fourth Round
Former champion Maria Sharapova dominated the third set to hold off American Lauren Davis 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-0 to win the 600th match of her career and reach the Australian Open fourth round.
Sharapova cruised through the opening set 6-1 in just 26 minutes, and opened up an early break advantage in the second to look like she would be on her way to an easy win.
But Davis showed a lot of toughness and broke back against Sharapova, and the two would head into a tiebreaker. At 5-4 in the breaker, Davis and Sharapova displayed some phenomenal tennis in a 27-shot rally, which ended when a Davis slice crashed into the net.
Instead of folding after losing such a tough point, Davis responded by winning the next two points and forcing Sharapova into a third set.
The Russian ended any hopes of an upset early in the third set, breaking for a 2-0 lead, and went on to bagel Davis in the final frame to escape in three sets.
Sharapova will play 12th seeded Swiss Belinda Bencic next. Bencic came back from a set down to oust Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.
“That’s going to be a tough one. She’s an inspired young player who’s been playing incredibly well for the last season,” Sharapova said of Bencic. “I’m just glad to be in the fourth round; I have a great opponent on the other side and I’m going to do everything to try and win that match.”
World number one Serena Williams had no problems with Daria Kasatkina in her third round match on Friday, moving past the Russian teenager 6-1, 6-1 in just 44 minutes.
“Everything I’ve been trying to work on was kind of clicking today,” said Serena. “I thought I played pretty well in the other matches though—my first match I thought I gave a great effort, and my second match, under the circumstances, I thought I played pretty well.
Hopefully with each match I can just keep doing better.”
That next match will come against another Russian in Margarita Gasparyan, who ousted Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 6-4.
Fourth-seeded Pole Agnieszka Radwanska rolled past Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig 6-4, 6-0.
“She started really well,” said Radwanska. “Everything was just coming so fast and she was playing with an amazing intensity. I was really in big trouble that first set. In that second set, I think I just found my rhythm, and I was serving much better as well.”
Radwanska will take on Germany’s Anna-Lena Friedsam, who put together the day’s biggest upset on the women’s side.
Friedsam dropped the first set to 13th seeded Italian Roberta Vinci without winning a game, but stormed back to knock off the U.S. Open finalist 0-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Australia’s Daria Gavrilova notched the other upset of the day, beating 28th seed Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 4-6, 11-9. Gavrilova will take on 10th seed Carla Suarez-Navarro of Spain, who led Russian Elizaveta Kulichkova 6-4, 2-0 before she had to retire.
