Federer Blasts Hewitt; Djokovic, Williams Sisters Also Advance into Australian Open QFs
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Roger Federer needed just under two hours to sink the hopes of locals for their man Lleyton Hewitt to pull off the upset. Federer won his 15th straight match over Hewitt after a comfortable 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 in the fourth round of the Australian Open. ADHEREL
“Hardly made any unforced errors,” Federer said. “If there were some, they were at moments I can live with. I was really able to press on the offensive, serve well when I had to, and I moved well as well. Overall I’m extremely happy. Yeah, I’m very pleased with my performance tonight.”
Federer’s win puts him into his 23rd straight Grand Slam quarterfinal, and it sets up a showdown against the streaking Nikolay Dayvdenko.
The pong-like Russian upped his win streak to 13 following a five-set marathon win over 2008 Australian Open semifinalist Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 7-5, 4-6, 6-7, 6-3.
Said Federer of the matchup: “In Doha when I played him, he hit 27 out of 27 first serves into the court clocking them at around 190. So it’s a bit a difference, you know. That makes it a bit more difficult to break. Obviously he’s one of the good return players we have in the game. He moves extremely well and makes it hard. I’m in for a good match for sure. I obviously favor my chances in a best-of-five set match. We’ll see how it goes.”
Courtesy of a friendly draw, Novak Djokovic eased into the quarterfinals with a 6-1, 6-2, 7-5 victory over the little-known Lukasz Kubot.
“Well, it’s the fourth round,” Novak said. “I knew that from a seeded players, if you, you know, if you look at the draw, I probably had, you know, the best possible draw at the moment. But I didn’t want to underestimate my opponent absolutely, because I’ve played him the finals of Belgrade, Serbia Open last year. I knew that he’s a tough opponent to play against. So I just went to the court willing to play my best from the start.”
Djokovic’s draw will get precipitously tougher as for the first time he’ll face a Top 50 player in Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The Frenchman Tsonga advanced in five sets over Nicolas Almagro 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 6-7, 9-7. The match was Tsonga’s first career five-set encounter.
The Williams took one more step closer to a semifinal showdown. Serena has little trouble eliminating Australian No. 1 Samantha Stosur 6-4, 6-2. The four-time champion is the lone player yet to drop serve in the tournament. Venus needed some more court time in ousting Francesca Schiavone 3-6, 6-2, 6-1. Na Li also won today upsetting Caroline Wozniacki. Vicktoria Azarenka and Vera Zvonareva were still battling for the final berth in the women’s quarterfinal.
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