Defending and six-time champion Serena Williams faces her second unheralded Russian in a row at the Australian Open on Sunday. If she wins her fourth-round match, she could play yet another Russian in the quarterfinals the most well-known and successful player from the country.
Williams takes on 21-year-old Margarita Gasparyan in the fourth round after beating 18-year-old Daria Kasatkina in the third. Next up could be Maria Sharapova in a replay of last year’s final, won by Williams.
Neither player is looking ahead to that possible rematch just yet. Sharapova also has another match to play first against 12th-seeded Belinda Bencic on Sunday.
The top-ranked Williams beat Gasparyan 6-4, 6-1 in the first round at Wimbledon last year when the now 58th-ranked Russian was a qualifier.
If the unwritten rule is not to criticize your opponent ahead of a match, Williams went to the opposite extreme.
“She has a great forehand up the line,” Williams said of Gasparyan, who she beat in the first round of Wimbledon last year. “She has a good serve. She mixes up the ball well. I thought she played really well at Wimbledon. She was fearless. She’s obviously made leaps and bounds since then, gained a lot of confidence.”
The other men
Third-seeded Roger Federer plays David Goffin in a night match on Rod Laver Arena as he attempts to win his fifth Australian Open title and first Grand Slam since Wimbledon in 2012. No. 6 Tomas Berdych plays No. 24 Roberto Bautista Agut and seventh-seeded Kei Nishikori takes on 2008 runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The Djokovic-Simon winner plays the Nishikori-Tsonga winner in the quarterfinals, while it’ll be the Federer-Goffin victor vs. Berdych or Bautista Agut in the other quarter.
From Russia, with love
Australia hasn’t taken long to fall in love with Russian-born Daria Gavrilova and winning certainly helps. Gavrilova, who became a permanent resident in 2013 and received her Australian passport in December, is the only Australian woman left in the singles draw. She plays 10th-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro in a night match on Rod Laver Arena. Local crowds love her heart-on-her-sleeve mannerisms on court falling to her knees in desperation when she misses a shot, smiling broadly when she hits a winner, and making hilariously funny comments in post-match, on-court interviews in her Russian-Australian accent. “I am very emotional,” she says. “I get frustrated with myself, and I guess I show it. Sometimes I shouldn’t be. When I’m happy, I guess I show it as well.”
The Gavrilova-Suarez Navarro winner plays the winner of the other fourth-round match between No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska and Anne-Lena Friedsam.
