China's Zhu Lin goes down fighting to Azarenka
Former world number one Victoria Azarenka reached her first Austalian Open quarter-final for seven years as she fended off China's Zhu Lin 4-6 6-1 6-4 in the early hours of Monday. Azarenka, twice a winner of the title in Melbourne, started slowly and lost the opening set but stormed through the second to take the fourth round match into a decider. Neither player could hold serve in the third set but Azarenka's greater experience finally pulled her through. The Belarusian wobbled when serving for the match at 5-4 but hit back from 15-40 to complete the victory at 2.15am local time with an angled crosscourt backhand winner. Azarenka, 33, will face third-seeded American Jessica Pegula for a place in the semi-finals. "I feel so relieved, it was complete pressure, lots of momentum shifts, there was everything in this match," 24th seed Azarenka said on a sparsely-populated Rod Laver Arena. "Happy I could handle everything and take my chances and went for it. I've had a couple of close matches this year that didn't go my way so I'm really proud of myself." Looking ahead to her quarter-final she said it would be a more familiar opponent, having known liitle about Zhu Lin. "I've practised a lot with Jess and I'm going to enjoy that one. If I do lose I would rather lose to Jess, but I'm going to give her hell!" On Monday, former world number one Karolina Pliskova needed only 55 minutes to beat China's Zhang Shuai 6-0 6-4 to move into the quarter-finals. Pliskova fired 12 aces and 33 winners to set up a clash with Magda Linette. (Reuters)_____________________________
Last updated: 2023-01-23 HKT 13:33 