Azarenka, Bartoli through to Brisbane quarters
Agence France-Presse | 01/06/2009 8:24 PM
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BRISBANE - Second seed Victoria Azarenka overcame a number of disputed line calls and a tenacious Jarmila Gajdosova to reach the quarter-finals of the Brisbane International here Tuesday.
The 19-year-old Belarusian downed her Melbourne-based Slovakian opponent 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 in a high-quality match lasting a shade over two hours.
A clearly angry Azarenka was on the receiving end of a number of bad calls, including one on her first match point when she was leading 5-4 in the second set.
"It was frustrating because I thought I won the match but I still had to keep going," she said.
"It was tough but what can you say -- there were a few bad calls but that's life."
Azarenka also had to overcome a partisan crowd that was right behind Gajdosova, who has lived in Melbourne for the past five years and has applied for Australian citizenship.
Gajdosova defied her current world ranking of 99 to take the game to Azarenka, the world number 15, and could have won the match with a bit more composure on the key points.
"She played amazing tennis," Azarenka said of her opponent.
"I didn't expect her to play that well. She was hitting (the ball) so hard, her serve was good.
"I played good, but she played some of her best tennis ... I think it was a very good match for people to watch."
Azarenka breezed through her first round against Kateryna Bondarenko for the loss of just two games, and said she would benefit from the close match with Gajdosova.
"My first match was a little bit easy so I'm in the game now," she said.
"I know how to fight for a lot of balls now so I think it's very good for me to have this match."
French third seed Marion Bartoli also had to fight hard for her win against Hungarian qualifier Melina Czink.
Bartoli lost the first set but came back to down Czink 5-7, 6-3, 6-1.
She said she found it hard to adapt to the outside court after playing her first match on the centre court at the new Queensland Tennis Centre.
"It was weird because the surface was so much faster than on the centre court and also with the light and the sun I couldn't see the ball in the first set when she was serving," Bartoli said.
"When she was tossing the ball I couldn't see anything and it took me a while to adapt, because usually no one can ace me as much as she was doing.
"But after that in the second and third sets it was fine."
Bartoli will next play Italian Tathiana Garbin, a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 winner over Russia's Alisa Kleybanova, while Azarenka takes on Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic, who beat Australia's Samantha Stosur 6-4, 6-4.
