Agencies
Melbourne, January 25
Seventh seed Eugenie Bouchard survived a second-set collapse to book her place in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open for the second year running. The Canadian, who reached the semi-finals in Melbourne on her championship debut 12 months ago, won the first set against Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu 6-1 on Rod Laver Arena and was 3-0 up in the second with two breaks of serve.
However, the 20-year-old then lost the next five games in a row and eventually the set 7-5 before a visit to the bathroom, where she gave herself a severe talking-to, inspired her to take the decider 6-2.
"I feel like I started really well so I wanted to keep that going but she came up with a couple of shots and my level totally dropped, which was not good," Bouchard said in an on-court interview.”
"I gave myself a good long hard look in the mirror and said 'Genie this is unacceptable' and really kicked myself in the butt a little bit. I tried to relax and play my game, I play so much better when I do that."
Bouchard had a point to prove after struggling to hold serve in her last match and made it emphatically in the first set, winning 74 per cent of first serve points.
She continued to steamroll her opponent early in the second set, racing to 3-0 with two service breaks before the Romanian settled and managed a double break back to lock it up at 3-3.
Begu held serve with an ace to edge ahead 4-3 then sent a sizzling backhand down the line to bring up three break points, with the stunned Canadian conceding the second off a forehand error.
A desperate Bouchard held on as Begu served for the set, then fended off two set points in the next game, but the Romanian's persistence paid off when Bouchard double faulted to take the match into a deciding set.
The Canadian then regained control of the match, breaking Begu in the opening game and in the seventh to book her progress.
Bouchard will face Sharapova in the quarter-finals after the second seed recorded a comfortable 6-3 6-0 win over China’s Peng Shuai.
The Russian broke Peng twice in the first set, though she had some trouble on serve with the Chinese holding four break points, and winning one, in a marathon seventh game.
Sharapova, however, wasted little time in finishing off Peng, breaking in the first game of the second set and using that as a springboard to romp to a 75-minute victory.
Fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova strolled into the last-eight with a straight sets victory over unseeded German Julia Goerges.
Makarova was never troubled against the world number 73, winning 6-3 6-2 to set up a quarter-final clash with third seed Simona Halep, who defeated Yanina Wickmayer in straight sets.
