Top seeds Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova both moved smoothly into the last 16 at the French Open on Saturday. Federer outplayed close friend Mario Ancic of Croatia, winning 6-3, 6-4 6-2 in cool, rainy, evening conditions on the Philippe Chatrier Centre Court. Earlier in the day, Sharapova defeated Italy’s Karin Knapp 7-6 (7/4), 6-0.
The Williams bandwagon rolled out of Roland Garros on Friday when sisters Venus and Serena were humbled in the third round by a pair of tenacious opponents who never lost belief. A day after the French Open lost three top-10 seeds, 2002 champion Serena joined them at the exit squeue as he roared and screamed her way to a 6-4 6-4 mauling by Katarina Srebotnik.
Roger Federer cruised into the French Open second round on Monday while rival and triple champion Rafael Nadal was left kicking his heels in the locker room as torrential rain swamped Roland Garros. The world number one then had the unexpected bonus of seeing potential quarterfinal danger man Richard Gasquet pull out of the tournament.
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/ 18 January 2008
Rafael Nadal wore down an early challenge from French seed Gilles Simon to steam into the fourth round of the Australian Open on Friday. The Spanish second seed fought off six first set points to seal a 7-5, 6-2, 6-3 win on his fifth match point in two hours 26 minutes.
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/ 16 January 2008
Police defended their use of pepper spray on rowdy tennis fans and the sport’s big guns kept on blasting at Melbourne Park as the Australian Open got back on track on Wednesday. As the fall-out of Tuesday night’s crowd trouble settled, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova all blasted their way into the third round of the year’s opening Grand Slam.
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/ 16 January 2008
Rafael Nadal breezed into the Australian Open third round with a 6-0 6-2 6-2 demolition of Frenchman Florent Serra on Wednesday. The world number two won the first eight games with his usual barrage of groundstrokes and although Serra competed more effectively in the second and third sets, he never threatened to halt the Spaniard’s progress.