{"id":30008,"date":"2019-01-21T13:22:49","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T13:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30008"},"modified":"2019-01-21T13:22:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T13:22:49","slug":"serena-williams-ousts-world-number-one-halep-at-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30008","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams ousts world number one Halep at Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

American tennis star Serena Williams has knocked out world number one Simona Halep to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, staying on course to equal\u00a0Australian Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam wins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The seven-time champion powered past her Romanian opponent in Melbourne on Monday night, sealing a hard-fought 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 fourth round victory in one hour and 47 minutes.<\/p>\n

“It was a really intense match and there were some incredible points but I love playing tennis… It’s really cool to be back out and playing again on this court,” Williams said in her courtside interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I really needed to elevate my game, she’s the number one player in the world and there’s a reason why,” she added.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With the win, Williams improved to 9-1 against the French Open champion and now meets 2016 US Open runner-up Karolina Pliskova in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old American sat out last year’s Australian Open after giving birth to a daughter months earlier and dealing with health complications.<\/p>\n

Since returning to the tour, Williams has reached the past two Grand Slam finals, losing both – and leaving her still one shy of equaling Court’s record of 24 major singles titles.<\/p>\n

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\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Halep lost the 2018 Australian Open final to Caroline Wozniacki [Lucy Nicholson\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Halep offered up the first real test Williams has faced at this year’s Australian Open, where she is bidding for an eighth trophy, pushing her throughout a back-and-forth matchup that was a fascinating mix of power, court coverage and shotmaking.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until Williams saved three break points in a monumental game to hold for three-all in the third set that she gained control. She then broke for a 4-3 lead and wrapped up the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In order for me to stay out there, I had to play a little like I knew I could,” said Williams, who is seeded 16th on account of all the time she took away from tennis<\/a> while becoming a mother.<\/p>\n

“I’m such a fighter. I just never give up. It’s definitely something that’s innate. I just work so hard for every point.”<\/p>\n

Czech seventh seed Pliskova advanced earlier on Monday with a 6-3, 6-1 thrashing victory over two-time major champion from Spain, Garbine Muguruza.<\/p>\n

The other quarterfinal on that side of the women’s bracket features Japan’s Naomi Osaka against world number six Elina Svitolina from Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Osaka, who beat Williams in last year’s US Open final, edged past 13th seed Anastasija Sevastova 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the fourth round, while Svitolina got past 2017 US Open finalist Madison Keys 6-2, 1-6, 6-1.<\/p>\n

The Australian Open is the year’s first Grand Slam championship – the most important tennis events held annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American tennis star Serena Williams has knocked out world number one Simona Halep to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, staying on course to equal\u00a0Australian Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam wins.\u00a0 The seven-time champion powered past her Romanian opponent in Melbourne on Monday night, sealing a hard-fought 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 fourth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}