Clijsters serene despite shock

Kim Clijsters, the girlfriend of Lleyton Hewitt, put aside the disappointment of his shock fourth-round defeat to reach the quarter-finals with a commanding 6-3, 6-1 victory over Amanda Coetzer.

The 19-year-old Belgian No4 seed entered the Rod Laver Arena within an hour of Hewitt's defeat on the same court, but if any bad vibes existed she quickly dispelled them. "I tried not to watch Lleyton's match too much because it's always a little bit tough when you are playing later," she said. "I was actually watching the Oprah Winfrey show in the afternoon and that took my mind off everything.

"I know him so well and he never likes to lose, but there's a lot worse things in life than losing a tennis match. If you see all the bush fires and everything that's happening in Australia now, losing a tennis match is nothing compared to that."

Clijsters has dropped only 10 games in her four matches so far and is on course to meet Serena Williams, the world No1 and reigning French, Wimbledon and US Open champion, in the semi-finals, having beaten both the Williams sisters in the end-of-season championship in Los Angeles last year.

"The way I finished then has helped my confidence and really I didn't want the year to end. But I'm definitely feeling very fit, very motivated and fresh. I'm really hungry to play a lot of tennis," she said.

Since last year's US Open Clijsters, who has yet to win a grand slam title, has established herself, at least on form, as the world's best player. But she is well aware that she still lacks experience at the highest level compared with the Williams sisters. "I used to maybe play one or two good matches, then one or two not as good. But now if my game goes off a little bit I'll just pick it up again during the match."

Her quarter-final opponent is the 21-year-old Anastasia Myskina, one of a clutch of young Russians attempting to make the grand slam breakthrough. She defeated Chanda Rubin of the US 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 and Clijsters recognises the threat: "She's a very, very tough opponent who runs a lot of balls down. Her weaker side is probably her serve so it's going to be important for me to attack that second serve."

When Serena Williams found herself a break and 2-1 down in the opening set against the powerful Greek Eleni Daniilidou it appeared an upset might be about to unfold. But just at the moment Daniilidou needed to press home her advantage she totally lost her service action and doubled-faulted four times in the same game.

Williams duly won 6-4, 6-1 and now meets another American, Meghann Shaughnessy, who defeated Russia's Elena Bovina 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. Neither Williams nor Clijsters was willing to talk about their possible semi-final meeting, but it is a match that everybody wants to see.