ID :
42369
Fri, 01/23/2009 - 19:16
Auther :

Jankovic sets up duel with Bartoli

World No.1 Jelena Jankovic is cautiously awaiting her first serious test at the Australian Open after cruising into what should be another comfortable encounter.
Jankovic is yet to drop a set in her first three matches and on Friday she again asserted total superiority, this time over Japan's 26th seed Ai Sugiyama.
The 23-year-old Serb won 6-4 6-4 to set up a duel with 16th seeded Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli.
Jankovic offered a modest assessment of her dominance.
"I thought I competed better than in the previous two rounds," she said.
Whether she will have to compete any better against her next opponent is doubtful.
Bartoli looked less than a match for the top seed in her defeat of the Czech Lucie Safarova, 3-6 6-2 6-1.
While Jankovic's quarter of the draw doesn't present any obvious problems, the section from which her semi-final opponent will come is looking far more competitive.
That quarter includes third seed Dinara Safina, fifth seed Ana Ivanovic and Australia's Jelena Dokic.
Safina displayed her best form of the championship on Friday when a switch in tactics put her into the fourth round.
Runner-up in Sydney last week, Safina had struggled over three sets in her second round match against unseeded compatriot Ekaterina Makarova, blaming a tentative approach for being taken to three sets.
In the third round she resolved to seize the initiative, which left her opponent, Estonian Kaia Kanepi, stranded at the baseline.
"I played a completely different game," Safina said after her 6-2 6-2 win.
"I was much more aggressive and I was just playing my game."
It was third time lucky for the 22-year-old as she recorded her best Australian Open result to date.
"I'm really happy, there's a first time for everything," she said.
"Twice I lost in the third round. Third time should be the luckiest one."
Safina last year cracked the top 10 for the first time on the back of WTA victories in Berlin, Los Angeles, Montreal and Tokyo and she acknowledges she has reached "some other level".
Much stronger mentally and physically now, Safina says she is better prepared thanwhen she reached the final of the French Open last year, to be beaten by Serb Ivanovic.
And she believes that will provide solid support for her if she runs into long matches from now on.
"Last year when I got to the final of the French Open I was in the final maybe not as fresh as Ana," she said.
"She had only one three-setter against (Jelena) Jankovic in the semis.
"Against (Maria) Sharapova I had to pull out the match having match point against me - next round the same against (Elena) Dementieva."
Safina has worked on her physical strength but believes in the end a strong mental approach will be the deciding factor.
"I have a tennis coach that I'm working all year with, I have a conditioning coach with me travelling, so it's day by day the same person working on me - that's why I think you never see me taped," she said.
"(But) if mentally you're fresh you can help your body to give the last step.
"If mentally you are tired then you go even more down and everything is going down."
In Friday's other fourth round matches, seventh seed Vera Zvonareva from Russia beat Italian Sara Errani 6-4 6-1, 15th seed Alize Cornet of France outlasted 19th seeded Slovak Daniela Hantuchova 6-4 4-6 6-2 and Russian Nadia Petrova was handed a place in the fourth round when Kazakhstan's Galina Voskoboeva retired injured in the second set.

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