Radwanska Tops Bouchard Down Under

Radwanska Tops Bouchard Down Under

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MELBOURNE, Australia – Agnieszka Radwanska held off Eugenie Bouchard at the Australian Open on Wednesday night. Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova continued their collision course.

In arguably the most anticipated second round match-up of the tournament, Radwanska – the form player by far since the US Open, winning more matches and more titles than anyone on the tour, took on Bouchard – a breakthrough star in 2014 who’s been back at her best this year after a tough 2015.

Bouchard came out harder, stepping inside the baseline time and time again and ripping her huge groundstrokes into the corners to build a 4-2 lead. But Radwanska held her ground, clawing back to take the set, 6-4 – she ripped a huge forehand winner on her fifth set point to seal the one set lead.

And she continued to pile it on in the second set, breaking again in the very first game and never really looking back, one last Bouchard error giving the No.4-seeded Radwanska the win, 6-4, 6-2.

“That was a great challenge for me to play somebody like Eugenie in the second round. Definitely not an easy draw. But I think I was doing everything right today,” Radwanska said after the match.

“I hadn’t played against her for a while, but I think she’s definitely playing better now than last season. I think she’s on a good way to come back, and she’s definitely playing much better tennis out there.

“I think in a couple of months we’re going to see her going deeper in the Grand Slams.”

Meanwhile, another blockbuster match-up – Williams against Sharapova – continued to materialize, as the No.1-seeded Williams routed Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-Wei, 6-1, 6-2 (read more here) and the No.5-seeded Sharapova powered past Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich, 6-2, 6-1 (read more here).

Williams and Sharapova will square off in the quarterfinals should they win two more rounds.

A big upset took place in the late night match, with Daria Gavrilova – now playing under the Aussie flag – weathering the power of Petra Kvitova to surprise the No.6 seed, 6-4, 6-4 (read more here).

It was a solid day for the rest of the seeded players, with No.10 seed Carla Suárez Navarro battling back to beat Greek qualifier Maria Sakkari, 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-2, No.12 seed Belinda Bencic defeating Timea Babos, 6-3, 6-3, No.13 seed Roberta Vinci carving out a 6-2, 6-3 victory against Irina Falconi, and No.28 seed Kristina Mladenovic hitting through American qualifier Nicole Gibbs, 6-1, 7-6(4).

There was another upset, though, with Kateryna Bondarenko holding off a late surge to take out No.23 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 7-5. Kuznetsova was coming off a title run at the lead-up in Sydney.

And on the outside courts, Kristyna Pliskova – twin sister of Karolina Pliskova – was making history, ripping 31 aces, the most aces in a single match in WTA history (the previous record was 27).

The Czech lefty ended up succumbing to Monica Puig in the end, however, 4-6, 7-6(6), 9-7.

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