Venus Williams sets up Australian Open quarterfinal against Li Na; Djokovic advances

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Venus Williams to meet Li Na in quarterfinals

MELBOURNE, Australia — Venus Williams advanced to the Australian Open quarterfinals for the seventh time to set up a meeting with Li Na, who helped make more Chinese history by reaching the last eight.

The sixth-seeded Williams beat Francesca Schiavone 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 on Monday, recovering after dropping a set to the Italian for the first time since 2003.

Li upset No. 4-seeded Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-3 in a 98-minute match featuring 12 service breaks. Li held when it counted: saving three break-point chances against the U.S. Open finalist in an 11-minute opening game; and serving it out on her second match point.

Li’s progress means there’s two Chinese players in the quarterfinals of the same major for the first time. Zheng Jie, the 2008 Wimbledon semifinalist, is into the quarters on the other half of the draw.

“Nothing better,” Li said, smiling, “Yeah, I mean good for us.”

In men’s fourth-round matches, 2008 champion Novak Djokovic beat Poland’s Lukasz Kubot 6-1, 6-2, 7-5 and No. 6 Nikolay Davydenko held off 2009 semifinalist Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 7-5, 4-6, 6-7 (5), 6-3 to extend his winning streak to 13.

Kubot, who finished last season at No. 101, got a walkover into the second week when No. 20 Mikhail Youzhny withdrew from their third-round match.

Davydenko was only two points from finishing off Verdasco in four sets but the Spaniard rallied to win the last four points of the tiebreaker and force a fifth set.

Davydenko fended off three break points and held to open the fifth set, then broke 9th-seeded Verdasco’s serve in a crucial sixth game. He finished it off in just under four hours.

Verdasco lost to eventual champion Rafael Nadal in the semifinals here last year in the longest match in the tournament’s history. He didn’t help himself against Davydenko, with 20 double-faults and 81 unforced errors.

Davydenko has beaten both No. 1 Roger Federer and No. 2 Nadal in runs to his last two titles.

“I just read last year I am ice man, now I am very hot,” the 28-year-old Davydenko, who has never reached the final of a major, said of his recent surge.

A regular on the outside courts through the earlier stages of the tournament, Davydenko joked that he thought it was the first time he’d won a center court match.

Federer was playing Monday night against Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt on Rod Laver Arena. Federer has reached the semifinals or better here every year since winning the 2004 title.

Li already has reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and went out at that stage in the last U.S. Open. She beat Williams in the quarterfinals at the Beijing Olympics in their only previous meeting, but she wasn’t drawing too much from that.

“It was good experience for me, for my tennis, also,” Li said. “But I just want to forget, because I will play her again. So I didn’t want always think about the last match. I want to look forward.”

Williams has won seven singles majors and reached the final of the Australian Open in ‘03, losing to her younger sister Serena, in her best run at Melbourne Park.

The Williams are on track to meet in the semifinals, with defending champion and No. 1-ranked Serena playing in a fourth-round match later Monday against Australia’s Sam Stosur. Serena has won four of her 11 Grand Slam singles titles in Australia.

Venus struggled to hold serve in the first set against Schiavone but was in command by the end, when she won the last six games after the 29-year-old broke her to open the third set.

“Francesca was playing so well, she was so tenacious, she has so much speed,” Williams said. “I had a little bit of a slow start.”

Williams’ win extended a streak in which at least one American woman has reached the Australian Open quarterfinals every year since 1977.

Four days after an angry outburst over the rules relating to replays and line calls, Andy Roddick got a crucial call in his favor in a fourth-round win over Fernando Gonzalez on Sunday night.

Roddick held off the 2007 Australian Open finalist 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 to reach the quarters for the sixth time in eight years. He’ll meet No. 14 Marin Cilic of Croatia, who ousted U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro in five sets.

Roddick bucked the trend on a day of upsets that also resulted in fourth-round exits for two of the top women: No. 2 Dinara Safina, last year’s runner-up, and No. 3 Svetlana Kuznetsova, the reigning French Open champion.

“I got a little lucky, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” he said.

Seventh-seeded Roddick hit a contentious, dipping forehand to close the fourth set on his fifth set point.

The ball was called out and Gonzalez didn’t take a swing. Roddick challenged the call immediately, winning it and leveling the match at 2-all.

Gonzalez argued that he could have had a play on the ball but chair umpire Enric Molina declined to replay the point.

The episode had a similar feel to the end of Roddick’s second-round win over Brazilian Thomasz Bellucci, when he angrily objected to a decision that went against him on a match point.

“I know he was pretty upset about the challenge and that rule no one seems to know about,” Roddick said of Gonzalez. “I can certainly sympathize with his frustrations.”

Roddick said the knee problem that sidelined him at the end of last season was bothering him a bit, but it didn’t affect the game.

Safina had to retire because of the recurrence of a back injury when she was serving at 5-4 down and 30-40 against Maria Kirilenko, who had upset 2008 champion Maria Sharapova in the first round.

Kirilenko next plays Zheng. Justine Henin, in her first Grand Slam tournament in two years, beat fellow Belgian Yanina Wickmayer and next plays Nadia Petrova.

Nadal advanced to a quarterfinal against No. 5 Andy Murray by beating Ivo Karlovic 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Murray beat American John Isner 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2.

(This version CORRECTS UPDATES with Davydenko advancing; corrects score for Li-Wozniacki.)