Serena Williams went down smashing rackets and screaming as she bowed out of the Australian Open quarter-finals on Wednesday, hampered by a back injury and beaten in three sets by fellow American Sloane Stephens.
The injury robbed Williams of her serve – the most effective weapon in women’s tennis – but teenager Stephens will take much credit for holding her nerve to finish off the ailing 15-times grand-slam champion.
Roger Federer’s bid to emulate Williams as a five-times Melbourne Park champion survived a five-set test at the hands of an inspired Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and the Swiss marched on to a last-four meeting with Andy Murray, who crushed Jeremy Chardy.
Stephens will have 24 hours to prepare for her first grand-slam semi-final against defending champion and world number one Victoria Azarenka, who came through a minor scare to beat Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.
“Oh my goodness,” said Stephens, teary-eyed and almost lost for words after beating a player whose picture once adorned her bedroom wall. “This is so crazy, but oh my goodness, I think I’ll put a poster of myself up now.”
The 31-year-old Williams, odds-on favourite to claim a third successive grand slam crown, pulled up to avoid hitting the net after a backhand drop shot early in the second set and shrieked as she felt the full force of a back spasm.
After lengthy treatment, Williams continued but the power of her serve and groundstrokes were considerably diminished and 19-year-old Stephens took advantage in impressive fashion to run out a 3-6 7-5 6-4 winner in Rod Laver Arena.
Williams, who smashed her racket to pieces in frustration in the third set, tried graciously to honour the locker-room code that you do not diminish an opponent’s achievement but was unable to wholly play down the significance of the injury.
“I even screamed on the court,” she said. “I was like, ‘ahh’. I totally locked up after that. It was…a little painful.
“I couldn’t really rotate after that, which I guess is normal. I don’t know.
“It was giving me trouble. But it was fine. I think my opponent played well and was able to do a really good job.”
Federer, also 31, started his match against Tsonga by breaking the Frenchman but it was just one of nine breaks in an absorbing three-and-a-half-hour contest that see-sawed back and forth all evening.
Tsonga, a finalist here in 2008, was tactically smart, sent down 20 booming aces and produced some brilliant forehands that overpowered even Federer’s defences at times.
The 17-times grand-slam champion rode his luck on occasions, too, but had something in reserve for the deciding set and finally overcame the seventh seed’s resistance with a smash on his fifth match point to clinch a 7-6 4-6 7-6 3-6 6-3 win.
“It was a tough close for sure, but the whole match was tough. Every set could have gone either way,” said Federer, whose victory ensured the top four seeds made the semi-finals for the 15th time at a grand slam in the professional era.
“With Jo, you never know what he’s going to come up with. I feel a bit lucky to come through but feel I played some great tennis and Jo did too.”
Djokovic dismantles Berdych in 4 sets
Novak Djokovic showed no ill-effects from his marathon encounter with Stanislas Wawrinka by brushing aside the challenge of Tomas Berdych at the Australian Open. Djokovic scraped past Wawrinka 12-10 in the fifth set on Sunday night in a match which lasted over five hours. But, not for the first time in his career, he displayed his remarkable powers of recovery with an impressive performance against the fifth-seeded Czech, winning 6-1 4-6 6-1 6-4 to set up a semi-final clash with David Ferrer. The victory also meant Djokovic will retain the number one ranking even if he does not win the title on Sunday. “It was a great performance,” he said. “I was hoping to have a shorter match, whoever won, just not go over five hours. “It was always going to be tough against Tomas, he has been an established top-10 player now for the last five or six years and if he’s on he can win against anyone on any surface. “I was aware of his qualities and I was very pleased with my performance.”
