Mauresmo Eases Into Last Eight

Amelie Mauresmo barely worked up a sweat as she crushed Nicole Vaidisova 6-1, 6-1 in the fourth round in Melbourne.

The third seed was in deadly form from the opening serve and dispatched of her 16-year-old opponent in less than an hour. Mauresmo produced just one unforced error to the Czech teenager’s 34 as she booked her place in the quarter-finals.

Mauresmo signaled her intentions early on by breaking Vaidisova’s opening service game and then racing away with the set in just 23 minutes. The second set began in similar fashion with Mauresmo holding her serve with ease.

Vaidisova’s inexperience soon became evident as Mauresmo had no trouble continuing to break her service games and rushing to a 5-0 lead. The youngster found some form to hold her next service game but Mauresmo wrapped things up on serve.
Mauresmo now faces Patty Schnyder, who beat 12th seed Anastasia Myskina with similar ease 6-2, 6-1, in the last eight and is happy with the way her form is improving.

"I feel that my game is really coming together," Mauresmo said. "I’m feeling the ball much better than at the beginning of last week.

"I think it gives you a lot of confidence to have these kind of matches and also not to spend too much time on the court.

"Physically I’m feeling well, I didn’t need to push myself a lot today. That’s good for the future, I think."

Kim Clijsters, meanwhile, struggled to get on top of Francesca Schiavone on centre-court.

The second seed looked troubled by injury as she hit an uncharacteristic 43 unforced errors to make victory tough for her - she was perhaps fortunate that Schiavone failed to capitalize on those mistakes to take the match 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.

Clijsters looked rusty and the Italian looked to have nabbed a surprise first set lead when ahead 4-1 in the tiebreaker before Clijsters came back strongly to win it 7-5. The pair exchanged breaks in the second set before Clijsters broke a second time to claim the match.