Seed No.19 Nadia Petrova crushed former world No.1 Kim Clijsters in the third round and her new attitude towards tennis is still proving to be fruitful as she has now knocked out third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.
On the same court where she scored a ruthless 6-0 6-1 victory over Clijsters, Petrova defeated French Open champion Kuznetsova 6-3 3-6 6-1 to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals.
“When I played Kim, before going on court, I said, ‘it’s all or nothing, I gotta to give everything’ (and) I did,” said world No.19 Petrova.
“Same thing happened today. If I can continue doing this, I can get even further.”
Petrova’s next opponent will be seven-time Grand Slam champion Justine Henin, who advanced to the last eight despite sustaining an ankle injury in the third set of her fourth-round match against fellow Belgian Yanina Wickmayer. Henin defeated Petrova in 12 of their 14 encounters, including their meeting at the Brisbane International this season. However, Petrova is very likely to test Henin’s physical readiness.
