Maria Sharapova sweeps away Ekaterina Makarova in the quarters – Australian Open 2013
World number two, Maria Sharapova, dropped four games in the quarter-final of the Australian Open against the 19th ranked compatriot, Ekaterina Makarova, to pile up a head-to-head lead of 5-0 against her. She won the
match 6-2, 6-2 ending the opening set in just 31 minutes and taking a fraction over 35 minutes to book a spot in the last four.
On Tuesday, the 25-year-old Russian registered her fifth consecutive win of the season to make it into the semi-finals of the year’s first Grand Slam event at Melbourne. She stated, “It’s all experience. I go through routines that
work for me; I go with the flow of routines. I go to the same restaurants where I’m familiar with the food. Maybe all of us have a little bit of that in us.” Commenting about losing just nine games in the entire tournament, she added, “To be honest, those
are not the statistics you want to be known for. It’s a great stat but I’m just so glad to be in the semi-finals again.”
Sharapova drew the first blood by breaking her rival’s serve in the third game but couldn’t capitalise on it with a serve hold. However, she did get the second breakthrough in the fifth game and protected it smartly with a serve
hold to make it 4-2 in her favour.
The free flowing ground strokes starting to come thick and fast for the four-time Grand Slam Champion as she registered another break serve to inch a step nearer in closing out the opening set. The second seed Russian lost just
one point in the final game of the opening set before getting herself registered on the set scoreboard.
The 24-year-old Russian had a long first serve game of the second set that featured three deuces but still she couldn’t break the momentum of her rival who bagged the opening game. Sharapova clinched another breakthrough by the
end of the fifth game that allowed her to post a stupendous lead of 4-1 against her rival.
A serve hold was good enough to leave her just one game away from yet another convincing victory at the Rod Laver Arena. The 6’2 tall Russian couldn’t break her rival’s serve in the seventh game but didn’t made a single mistake
on her big booming serves to round off the proceedings in fancy fashion.
Maria Sharapova will face Li Na in the semi-final of the Australian Open.
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