The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Title favourite forced to adapt to survive
Angelique Kerber was bamboozled but not beaten by Hsieh Su-wei as the Australian Open title favourite battled her way into the quarter-finals.
Hsieh plays a different game from most of her rivals, relying not on power but a mixture of spins and slices and ball placement to drive opponents to distraction.
Her scalps in Melbourne had included Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza and Agnieszka Radwanska, and for a long time it looked like Kerber might join them.
But the 2016 champion has a deep well of confidence after her unbeaten start to the season and kept her composure to turn the match around and win 4-6 7-5 6-2.
Kerber said: “I was always like, ‘this is impossible’ how she hit the ball.
“All the time she had the better answer.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m really happy about how I was able to change the match and playing good tennis again in important moments, especially in the third set.”
In the last eight Kerber will face US Open finalist Madison Keys, who has played superbly so far this fortnight and blasted her way past eighth seed Caroline Garcia, winning 6-3 6-2.
The 22-year-old has long been marked out as a potential Grand Slam winner but her first final experience in New York last summer was something of a horror show as she won just three games against friend Sloane Stephens.
“To have such a great two weeks and then have it end the way that it did, it was really devastating for me, so it definitely took some time to get over,” said Keys.
World number one Simona Halep avoided the dramas of the third round to ease into the quarter-finals with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Naomi Osaka.
The 26-year-old looked to be heading home when Lauren Davis held three match points in their titanic encounter on Saturday but recovered to win 15-13 in the deciding set.
The Romanian suffered an ankle injury in her first-round match but is confident she can play through the pain.
“The ankle is still sore,” she said. “But I’m not thinking about that any more. The match against Davis was huge for me, maybe it gave me a little bit more confidence that my body is OK and I can resist the tough matches.”
In the quarter-finals, Halep will face sixth seed Karolina Pliskova, who finished off a 6-7 (5/7) 6-3 6-2 victory over fellow Czech Barbora Strycova at 1.34am local time.