Kim Clijsters and Li Na will meet in a rematch of last year’s Australian Open final after a dramatic end to the women’s third round on Friday. After defending champion Clijsters reached the fourth round with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova, Li went through when Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues retired in tears after injuring her ankle.
Li was leading 2-0 in the first set when Medina Garrigues agonisingly turned her right ankle during a baseline rally. After a medical time-out she tried to continue but lost the next game and retired during the fourth. The injury ensured a highly-anticipated fourth round match with Clijsters, the first meeting between the two since last year’s final, won by the Belgian in three sets. Earlier top seed Caroline Wozniacki and third-ranked Victoria Azarenka both reached the fourth round without dropping a set as they target maiden grand slam wins. But while Wozniacki cruised past Romania’s Monica Niculescu 6-2, 6-2, Azarenka was handed her first real test of the tournament before beating Germany’s Mona Barthel 6-2, 6-4.
Clijsters will need to better Friday’s effort if she wants to go much further in the tournament. The match on Friday was closer than the scoreline suggested, with Hantuchova missing a number of chances to put pressure on the title-holder with some simple mistakes. The 11th-seeded Belgian broke Hantuchova five times in the match, but was broken twice herself as she made only 56 percent of her first serves. Clijsters also made 18 unforced errors in a sometimes sloppy display, but was rescued by her ability to smash winners from all over the court, 27 of them compared with 12 from Hantuchova. “I think in general, the type of player that I had in front of me who hits the ball very low over the net where you’re going to have to step in, there’s going to be a higher unforced error count,” Clijsters said. “But in general, I still felt like I was hitting enough winners.”
