World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki continued her winning run at the Australian Open campaign with a commanding victory over Romanian Monica Niculescu to reach the last 16 on Friday.
The top-seeded saw off the Niculescu 6-2, 6-2 with her most aggressive display so far and maintain the hope to claim her first Grand Slam singles title.
She is joined in the fourth round by third seed Victoria Azarenka, a 6-2, 6-4 winner against Mona Barthel of Germany, earlier on Friday.
Wozniacki expelled overwhelming powers against 31st seed Niculescu during the 76-minute match. When she took the opening set 6-2 and led at 5-2 in the second, Wozniacki wasted one match point and loss her serve on Niculescu's fourth break point. But Wozniacki came back to break the Romanian player in the next game to clinch the match.
Third-seeded Azarenka destroyed Heather Watson and Casey Dellacqua in rounds one and two, and she repeated it when against Barthel.
She took the first set off her German opponent in 31 minutes with two breaks of serve and only three unforced errors. Barthel came back in the second, after broken to love in game five, she had break points in games eight and ten.
But Azarenka held firm on both occasions to come through to the final victory.
Azarenka's next challenge comes in the form of unseeded Czech Iveta Benesova, a 6-1, 6-3 winner against Nina Bratchikova.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)