Stephens, Azarenka to meet in revenge match

Victoria Azarenka will face the now-13 seed Sloane Stephens in this year’s quarterfinal. (Aaron Favila/AP)

We’re halfway through the Australian Open and the results are starting to mimic Melbourne’s bipolar weather.

After a few steady opening rounds, the heat and lightning gave way to ups and downs on the court. Serena Williams’ loss is by far the biggest surprise of the tournament, going out to former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic of Serbia, who had never won a set off of the American before, let alone beat her in a Grand Slam.

The 32-year-old American later admitted to some issues with her back and neck, which her coach/rumoured boyfriend Patrick Moratoglou allegedly “let slip” to the press.

“So he’s the one that’s snitching?” asked Williams in her post-match presser.

Balancing honesty about the injuries without taking anything away from Ivanovic was handled pretty deftly by Williams, but she also couldn’t help but mention that, “I’m not disappointed or anything. I just know that I can play ten times better than what I did today.”

Geniemania

Last year, Eugenie Bouchard came to the Australian Open as a qualifier, ranked 145 in the world. This year, she became the first Canadian in 22 years to make a quarter-final at a major, and will leave the tournament with a projected ranking of 21 – at least.

She’s also learning a lot about Australian fauna, courtesy of the “Genie Army,” a pack of Aussie fans who’ve been following her around her matches in T-shirts that spell out “Genie,” and handing out stuffed animals.

“I got a gift again today,” said Bouchard, after defeating Australian Casey Dellacqua. “It’s a kookaburra. I’m getting the full range of the Australian animals.”

Call it a gift for the rest of us, getting to hear the Canadian anthem sung in heavy Australian accents.

Bouchard plays Ivanovic next. The 26-year-old Serbian is playing some of the best tennis of her career and will be the favourite going in, but there’s a nice asterisk – Bouchard upset Ivanovic at Wimbledon last year. In straight sets.

TENNIS THEORIZING

After Ivanovic took out Williams, @andymugray, an Andy Murray parody account tweeted a fake note of thanks from Maria Sharapova.

Gotta wonder though… Sharapova hasn’t been able to beat Williams in nearly 10 years – her last win of the “rivalry” was at the end of 2004 at the Tour Championships in LA. So is the ultracompetitive Russian actually happy for Ivanovic or does it make her clench her fists even tighter?

For what it’s worth, no matter how injured Williams ever got, I think she’d rip off her own leg and play with that before she ever let Sharapova beat her again.

Telling Quotes

Last year, Victoria Azarenka blew five match points, dropped serve, and took a medical timeout with then-29 seed Sloane Stephens now at 4-5 in the second set of their semifinal. The Belarusian came back and promptly won the match. Outrage ensued.

They’re at it again – Azarenka will face the now-13 seed Stephens in this year’s quarterfinal.

Stephens: That has nothing to do with this year… it’s a new match. I mean, it will be Monday hopefully on the big court. It will be exciting.

Q: So your off-court relationship with her [Azarenka] is like what?

Stephens: Non-existent.

Vika’s not giving up much either.

Q: Learn anything from the aftermath of that match?

Azarenka: No. What is there to learn? I mean, it was just a great experience for me to be playing in the final and winning the title. That what I learned, I guess, yeah. Just learn how to win the second Grand Slam.

Maria and Serena both prickly pros when asked about their personal lives. First, Maria asked about Grigor Dimitrov, the 22-year-old who beat Milos Raonic for his first fourth round appearance at a major.

Q: You’re older than Grigor and a multiple Grand Slam champion. He’s making his way up the rankings. Do you ever talk or joke about that rubbing off on him?

Sharapova: I don’t know if that’s a joke. Is it? I don’t know. (Smiling). Which part of it is a joke, Doug [Robson, USA Today]?

Q: Well, do you ever discuss it?

Sharapova: That’s better. No, not really. We have a lot of different topics we discuss. That’s not one of them.

Serena dodges a weird one about her coach, and rumoured boyfriend, Patrick Moratoglou.

Q: You have spoken about Patrick and how much knowledge he has, how he’s tennis-wise, as you would say. Seems to me he also has a sense of humor, a twinkle in his eye; is that true?

Williams: He has a twinkle in his eye? I have actually never heard that, but I will tell him (smiling).

Q: To me he does. What are your thoughts in the non-tennis side of things?

Williams: Obviously he’s a very serious guy, which is why I probably have never seen the twinkle. He takes his job and his life extremely serious. I think he’s really motivated. I think that’s great, because we both are motivated to be at the top.

Switching gears to friendly foes, Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov were delighted with each other’s results, apparently.

Dimitrov: He’s a great guy, first of all. I know him quite some time. We played juniors together. I’m sure we’re gonna play quite a few matches together.

Raonic: I can’t be mad at the guy for beating me or anything. I’ve seen him around since juniors, since under 14s. I know him and I respect him… But just from growing up with him, I would, for example, want him to do well because I’ve known him for quite some time.

One to remember:

“That mental edge, that’s something you can’t get at the gym.”
– Novak Djokovic

Random stat

Tomas Berdych hasn’t dropped serve, and has won 52 games in a row on it. But everyone’s more concerned with his shirt. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Grand Slam Tweets

Everyone’s favourite Fake Federer account, PseudoFed, shared what he’d be like as a future coach.

Seems like that’s the kind of coach Genie wouldn’t mind having…

From the files of “Um…”, Andy Murray’s mom tweets his latest poster.

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