OK so now onto Part 3 of the Sony Ericsson Open posts, which saw more action at the event from the Crandon Park Tennis Centre. Today we saw the men's 4th round matches being wrapped up and the ladies quarter finals get under way.
Starting with the men, and Andy Murray first who took on the Frenchman Gilles Simon, whom he has a very good record against and in this match it was no different, despite a very tough and long first opening game on the Muzza's serve, Andy came through it and soon after broke Simon's serve and closed out the first set in 6-3. In the second Andy broke once again and this time Simon managed to keep it close, but in the end the British No.1 had just too much for him and closed it out 6-3, 6-4. So this sets up a clash with the Serb No.2 in the world, Janko Tipsarevic, which could well be a tough one, so we will see how that goes, but Andy should hopefully prevail. In other matches World Numero one, Novak Djokovic took on the Frenchman, Richard Gasquet, and after a tight first set, which Djoko won, it got easier for the Serb as he broke Gasquet early on, but meet a bit of resistance toward the end, but Djoko won in7-5, 6-3, to reach the quarters. David Ferrer took on Del Potro and this promised to be a tough match and strangely enough it turned out to be fairly straight forward for the Spaniard, as he dispatched the big yin in 6-3 6-3, to set up a very intruiging encounter with Djokovic. Andy Roddick however despite his win over Roger Federer, went down against Juan Monaco, despite being a break up in the first set, Roddick lost the way and ended up losing it in 7-5, and in the 2nd set he was nowhere and the Argentine moved ahead in 7-5, 6-0. And Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also had a fairly easy time of it against Florian Mayer who he breezed past in straight sets. So today we have two very exciting quarter finals in the making, with Andy taking on Janko, and Rafa who defeated the tricky Kei Nishikori in 6-4, 6-4, taking on Tsonga, which should be a belter.
Now onto the ladies quarter finals, which were a bit of a mixed bag, first up we had Maria Sharapova who played Li Na, the Chinese No.1, but it was pretty easy going for Sharapova who broke Li Na once in the first set, and three times in the 2nd, winning a very easy 6-3, 6-0 in just over 67 minutes. However the next proved to be quite a different and far more entertaining encounter between two former World No.1's, Serena Williams and Caroline Wozniacki. Naturally I thought Serena would be the hot favourite to win this match, given her head to head against Caroline has been very good, as Caz has never beaten her. But it turned out to be quite different this time round, as Serena clearly wasn't playing her best, making quite a few unforced errors, while Caroline played a very solid match. Caroline took a single break in the first set, and in the 2nd she was up a double break, but on serving it out at 5-2, Serena broke back to make it 5-4, but Caroline didn't the same trouble the second time round and closed out the match and her first ever win against one of the best players to have played the game in 6-4, 6-4.
I was really chuffed for Caroline that she won this match as she really needs a big win like this to boost her confidence, which has taken quite a beating of late, and to beat a player of Serena's calibre can do no harm for anyone's confidence. So just maybe this could be the match that could turn round Caroline's year, could it???? Well you can hope so. Admittedly Serena wasn't playing her best by any means, especially by her lofty standards, but a win against her in any circumstances is a great result. So next up for Caroline is Maria Sharapova, which Sharapova leads the head to head 3-2, but I sincerely hope Caroline beats her this time and here's why. If Sharapova beats Caroline, she will be in the final again, and most likely she will face Azarenka once again, which means it could be another whitewash. But if Caroline reaches the final and plays Azarenka we could really be looking at a match here, and a very close one hopefully, and if anyone can beat Azarenka, for me its the Wozza. But first things first, she needs to get past Sharapova, which will not be easy, and here's hoping she can.
In the meantime we have the remaining quarter finals for the ladies coming up with Agnieszka Radwanska taking on the remaining Williams sister, Venus, which promises to be very good, and I would have to bet on Venus winning, but you never know. And Victoria Azarenka will play the gutsy, battler that is Marion Bartoli, so that promises to be a really good one, but I think Vika will come through it. But both matches promise to be really good.
So I will leave it there. More soon!
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