Federer labours, Schiavone wins longest match
MELBOURNE: Roger Federer made hard work of reaching his 27th consecutive grand slam quarter-final at the Australian Open on Sunday but it looked like a short shift after Francesca Schiavone's titanic tussle with Svetlana Kuznetsova.
French Open champion Schiavone took a gruelling four hours and 44 minutes to edge her Russian friend 6-4 1-6 16-14 in a Hisense Arena thriller and claim a place in the last eight after the longest women's grand slam singles match in the modern era.
Maria Sharapova would happily have played on longer in her fourth round match against Andrea Petkovic but the in-form German sent the former champion and world number one tumbling out of Melbourne Park 6-2 6-3 in just 79 minutes.
Text: Reuters
Images: AP
In Image: Switzerland's Roger Federer, left, shakes hands with Spain's Tommy Robredo after winning his fourth round match at the Australian Open
No comments:
Post a Comment