The 1st 2 quarter finals were played on Tuesday and one of them followed form whilst the other saw a minor upset as I predicted.
2/2 Sharapova wasn't quite at her best but nonetheless put away (19/19) Makarova 62 62. Only broken once all match, she hit with consistent depth and punished her opponents spinning second serve. No woman's dropped fewer games en route to the semis here since 1988, as she has dropped only 9 games and is now through to her 6th AO semi final, maintaining her perfect winning ratio in QF here.
6/6 Li ended (4/4) Radwanska's 13 match, 26 set winning streak with a 75 63 win. The 1st set saw Radwanska twice go up a break, including serving for the 1st set at 5-4. With the recent win over Li in Sydney, it looked as if she was set to seize control. Each time though, Li broke straight back and under Roderiguez has learned to control her emotions and stay calm. Despite some poor serving, Li's ground strokes were deep and proved too tough for the Pole to handle. Despite going 0-2 down in the 2nd, she then went on a tear of 4 straight games, whilst Agnieszska often made the wrong decisions to come into net on nothing balls. Li maintained her perfect AO quarter final winning ratio to reach her 3rd semi in the last 4 years, whilst Agnieszka failed for a 4th time in 4 attempts to go beyond this point at the AO and incurred her 1st loss of the season.
So, Maria and Li! Sharapova leads the series 8-4 and won all 3 2012 meetings, twice winning a set to love. Maria's won her last 3 AO semis, whilst Li has gone 1-1 in the 2 previous. However, each time it's been close and Li did beat Maria in their biggest slam meeting yet; the FO semis 2011. I'll say Sharapova will win, but she'll lose more than 4 games!
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