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No signs of slowing Serena wins in straight sets; Shaughnessy up nextPosted: Monday January 20, 2003 12:58 AMUpdated: Monday January 20, 2003 4:35 AM
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Once again, Serena Williams had a slow start but a strong finish, moving within three victories of capturing the Australian Open championship and a "Serena Slam." Williams, who already holds the most recent titles from the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open, beat Eleni Daniilidou 6-4, 6-1 Monday. Her quarterfinal opponent will be fellow American Meghann Shaughnessy, who saved five break points in the final game to beat Elena Bovina 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. "That's a great win for her," Williams said of Shaughnessy. "OK, that's two Americans in the quarterfinals, so one of us is guaranteed to get to the semis." Also in the quarterfinals is Williams' sister Venus, who lost to Serena in the final three Grand Slam events last year. Meanwhile, Andy Roddick became the second American in the men's quarterfinals, rebounding from two sets down to beat Mikhail Youzhny 6-7 (4), 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-2. Counting two previous losses to Youzhny, Roddick had lost six consecutive sets against the Russian Davis Cup hero before staging his comeback. He pulled out a tight third set with a heavy serve return that Youzhny hit wide, gained an early break in the fourth set and broke twice in the fifth, ending with a low shot that Youzhny volleyed into the net and three unreturnable serves. Three-time champion Andre Agassi already had reached the quarterfinals, where he will meet France's Sebastien Grosjean. Roddick, also a quarterfinalist twice at the U.S. Open, next faces Morocco's Younes El Aynaoui, who knocked off No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt in four sets. Another American hope, James Blake, lost 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 to Germany's Rainer Schuettler, who gained the fourth round when 2002 runner-up Marat Safin withdrew with a wrist injury from a fall in an earlier match. Williams played the last match on center court before organizers temporarily suspended play on the outside courts, citing temperatures of 95 degrees and high humidity. They had the option of closing the roof over center court, but did not do so. "It's hard to breathe," said Williams, who sat gulping air during the changeovers. "But it's OK, I like the heat." Williams, who missed the Australian Open with an injury last year before winning the other three majors, has struggled early in three of her four matches here so far. In Monday's first set, she gestured in exasperation over some of her misses. Her serve was broken twice in the set, but she broke three times. The 20-year-old Daniilidou, who's from Greece and was seeded 18th, helped by double-faulting eight times. Williams then settled down, reducing her errors from 21 in the first set to six in the second. "I always say, 'OK, keep trying,' Williams said. "I got out to a slow start, which is something I don't want to happen" as the matches get tougher. Shaughnessy, a 23-year-old American who's seeded 25th, reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam event for the first time by winning her 11th straight match to start the year. Before the Australian, she won a warmup tournament in Canberra. Serving for the match against Bovina, a U.S. Open quarterfinalist last year, Shaughnessy saved break points with an error by the 19-year-old Russian, a service winner, an overhead smash, an inside-out forehand and an ace. After another service winner, she finished the 2-hour, 19-minute match when the 20th-seeded Bovina netted a backhand serve return. Shaughnessy's previous best showing in a major came at the 2001 French Open and Wimbledon, where she reached the fourth round. "To beat Serena, you've got to attack her," Shaughnessy said. "She's such a great player it's going to take someone really going after the match." Shaughnessy was leading 5-4 against Serena in a warmup tournament last year when Serena twisted her ankle chasing a drop shot and pulled out of the Australian Open. Schuettler, a 26-year-old German who had never reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal before, rebounded from early service breaks by Blake in the first two sets. In the final set, the two traded service breaks in the fourth and fifth games, and Schuettler gained the key break in the sixth when Blake double-faulted. Schuettler finished with a forehand down the line that Blake couldn't handle at the net. The 23-year-old Blake, playing in a Grand Slam event's fourth round for the first time, had 35 errors, compared with 19 by Schuettler. "When you're playing for something that's really important, the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam, it hurts," Blake said. "I learned something. You can't play the same tennis in the second week as you can in the first." While Venus Williams waltzed into the quarterfinals Sunday with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Australian Nicole Pratt, Justine Henin-Hardenne just about had to crawl there, writhing with leg cramps near the end of her three-set victory over Lindsay Davenport. After being treated with ice on the court, the Belgian defeated the once top-ranked Davenport 7-5, 5-7, 9-7 in 3 hours, 13 minutes. On Monday, Henin-Hardenne withdrew from the doubles to rest for her singles quarterfinal. Sunday's match fell eight games and 20 minutes short of the Australian Open record for longest women's match. In 1996, Chanda Rubin, who is in the fourth round this year, beat Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 6-4, 2-6, 16-14 in 3:33. Henin-Hardenne next plays 63rd-ranked Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over 62nd-ranked Denisa Chladkova of the Czech Republic. This was Henin-Hardenne's first victory in six meetings with
Davenport, who missed most of last season after knee surgery but
came back to reach the U.S. Open semifinals.
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