Kerber will play Madison Keys for a place in the semi-finals after the American 17th seed steamrollered French eighth seed Caroline Garcia for loss of five games
Thursday 24 May 2018 14:23, UK
Title favourite Angelique Kerber kept her hopes of a second Australian Open title alive by withstanding the challenge of Taiwan's tenacious Hsieh Su-wei.
Hsieh plays a completely different game from most of her rivals, relying not on power but a mixture of spins and slices and ball placement that bamboozle opponents and frequently drive them to distraction.
Her scalps in Melbourne had already included Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza and Agnieszka Radwanska, and for a long time it looked like Kerber might join them.
But the German has a deep well of confidence after her unbeaten start to the season and kept her composure to turn the match around and win 4-6 7-5 6-2.
"First of all, credit to her. She played unbelievable. She was hitting the balls, I don't know. I was running everywhere and she always had the answer. I was everywhere," Kerber said.
In the last eight, Kerber will face US Open finalist Madison Keys, who has played superbly so far this fortnight and blasted her way past eighth seed Caroline Garcia, winning 6-3 6-2.
Keys, who hit 32 winners compared to just nine for her opponent, said: "I'm feeling really good. I feel like I'm playing just solid, consistent tennis. I think today was a good example of that. I served well. I returned well. But I don't think I played unbelievable. I think I just played really solid and smart."
The 22-year-old has long been marked out as a potential Grand Slam winner but her first final experience in New York last summer was something of a horror show as she won just three games against friend Sloane Stephens.
"To have such a great two weeks and then have it end the way that it did, it was really devastating for me, so it definitely took some time to get over," said Keys.
"More than that, it was realising that it was so unexpected, and I was so happy to even get there in the first place after having such a rough beginning of my season, that after telling myself that a couple of times I definitely finally moved on and just wanted to put myself in the same position again so that maybe I could have a different outcome."
Simona Halep breezed into the quarter-finals with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Naomi Osaka.
The world No 1 saved three match points in a near four-hour epic against Lauren Davis last time out but there was no such drama against Japanese opponent Osaka.
"It was a great match. I'm really happy that I'm in the quarter-finals. I didn't expect that when I started the tournament because of the injury but today I played well," said the Romanian.
"This tournament looks like a marathon for me. The injury is still there but I try not to think too much about it and give everything because after this hopefully I'll have a few days off."
Halep, in search of her maiden Grand Slam, will next face Karolina Pliskova, who prevailed in the all-Czech clash against Barbora Strycova.
The big-serving 25-year-old was made to work hard for the victory in the second night session match on Rod Laver Arena but recovered from losing the opening set on a tiebreak to win 6-7(5) 6-3 6-2 in two hours and 41 minutes.
"I think the first set was very close but I needed to step up and be more aggressive," Pliskova said in the on-court interview.
"I was playing fine the other two sets. On this surface I have a chance (against Halep)."
Pliskova, world No 6, is yet to progress past the quarter-finals in Melbourne and will go into the meeting against Halep as the underdog having lost their previous two encounters.
