Angelique Kerber was a shock loser in the fourth round of the 2019 Australian Open while Petra Kvitova and Ash Barty made it to the last eight but in contrasting matches.
The second seeded Kerber must have gone into her fourth round match thinking this should not take her too much time against Danielle Collins and that’s exactly what happened. Except that the result went against her.
Collins blew her German opponent off the court, dropping just two games in her two-set rout of her opponent to make it to her first ever quarter-final at a Grand Slam. Her previous best showing at a Grand Slam? Three successive first round exits at the previous majors she featured in!
But after having beaten Julia Goerges in three sets in the first round, brushed aside fellow American Sachia Vickery in the second, and crushed Caroline Garcia to make it to round four, it looked like she would at least go into the biggest match of her career thus far with some confidence.
She went on to give Kerber a lesson of her life, winning 6-0, 6-2 to seal her place in her first ever Grand Slam quarter-final where she will meet the winner of the match between Sloane Stephens and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
In another fourth round match of the day, Maria Sharapova looked like she had the control over proceedings when she pocketed the first set against Australia’s Barty.
However, Barty fought back from the brink to level the match by winning the second set 6-1 and while she looked like she was losing control from having run off to a 4-0 lead in the final, the Aussie clinched the encounter in three sets.
Eighth seeded Petra Kvitova also ran past Amanda Anisimova to set up a meeting against with Barty for a place in the semi-finals.
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