After a three-hour third set and six match points saved, Francesca Schiavone defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova and advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2011 Australian Open. It is now the longest women’s Grand Slam match in history. It lasted 4 hours and 44 minutes, and included a stunning 30-game third set. Final score: 6-4 1-6 16-14. During the course of the match, 358 points were played!
The match was 25 minutes longer than the previous longest women’s Grand Slam match – the 4 hours and 19 minutes encounter between Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova and Regina Kulikova at last year’s Australian Open.
The French Open champion Schiavone needed 11 attempts to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and now she made sure that everyone heard about it. The sixth seed will next face world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, who hasn’t dropped a set at the tournament. In the fourth round Wozniacki defeated Anastasija Sevastova 6-3 6-4.
Li Na, whose best Grand Slam result came at Melbourne Part last year when she reached the semis, powered past Victoria Azarenka 6-3 6-3 and made it to the quarterfinals. The Chinese will next play Andrea Petkovic, who took out three-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova, and reached her first quarterfinal of a major with a 6-2 6-3 win. “There are many things that didn’t work today,” Sharapova commented on her performance. “I didn’t get my first breakpoint until it was a set and 5-1. That’s not the type of tennis I want to be playing, especially on the return.” (photo: Stephane Martinache)
Wow, I was pleasantly suprised to hear about such exciting match, unfortunately we don’t see many like this these days in womens tennis… Too bad someone had to loose, and too bad Schiavone will be probably too tired in the quaters. I still can’t belive how lucky Wozniacki is with draws, she could easily go into semis without any serious threat. As for Maria, again very, very dissapointing, I thought she had a clear way to quarters, and then she looses 6:2, 6:3 to solid player?! I think she has to change coach, she’s been at the pretty same average level ever since she returned to tour, she needs a change in her game, it’s obvious that when playing like this things just aren’t working as they used to be. 🙁
The match between Francesca and Svetlana was really exciting! I think the joy is immense for Francesca because she also has secured the fourth position in the ranking, the first Italian in history 🙂
Marija, did you hear the joke of Caroline in a press conference? She has reported being attacked by a kangaroo but it was not true ahahah
Marjana, everyone is expecting the old Maria to come back, but it just fails to happen over and over again. I’m sure Maria is trying, but not everything is coming in the place where it should be.
Francesca, I read everything about it. Caroline is tired of the press conferences being the same every time, so she decided to spice them up with an invented story.
Yeah, I’m pretty much done with the fact Maria will ever be old herself, and I think she is making a mistake trying so hard to be the player she used to be. She just can’t hit the ball that long and that hard as long as she used to, and that play style is simply not winning her matches anymore. Her game needs a change, more variety, ’cause like this she is a top 20 player and that’s all.
it was a great match and very intresting one of course wow frencesca congratulations what agreat match.
I’m not a big fan of Francesca but the match was really good and she deserved to win. Petkovic played really well and even though everyone’s saying that Maria won’t be her old self again I have a to disagree. Being a tennis player myself I have to say that getting into top 500 is hard let alone being ‘just top 20’. We mustn’t forget that Maria had a very tough injury and that she’s still getting back into it. Plus you never know what can happen in tennis so no one can know for sure whether she will be top 5 again but we do know that she’s always been and always will be a world class player, meaning that she she still has a chance to be World No 1 again.
Wow, that must have been some match! Credit to Schiavone, didn’t see any of the match but thought that Kuznetsova would win it without much fuss.
It’s so frustrating being a Sharapova fan right now. It’s extremely difficult to watch her play, not knowing whether she’s actually going to perform well, or if her serve is just going to desert her. Obviously it’s been really hard for her ever since she came back, the shoulder injury was so severe and as she’s said herself, she’s lucky that she’s even back playing. It’s been a disappointing comeback because she hasn’t reached the expectations of the tennis public and even those that she has set for herself. I think one of the main reasons for this is that her father has stopped travelling with her since she came back. When she was ranked in the top 5 for all those years he was always by her side was obviously an extremely important part of her team. Now that Michael Joyce is taking a break and Thomas Hogstedt is acting as coach, I think it might be time to bring Yuri back aswell. Not that I think it’s going to happen, but it’s nearly 2 years since she came back, she’s reached one grand slam quarter-final and had some shocking losses. For someone of her standard that is both surprising and disappointing. It’ll be interesting to see if anything else changes in the Sharapova setup over the next while and even more interesting to see if she can finally return to the top of the game. I don’t think she belongs outside the top 10. Right now though it doesn’t seem very likely that she’ll get back but I hope she can prove me wrong.