Serena Williams, Cibulkova will face off in the AO quarters

We are going to have a very muscular quarter in the top part of the draw as Serena Williams will take on last year’s finalist Dominka Cibulkova.

Serena

The World no.1 was in one of her days when she starts slow to finally find her groove after a while. Serena was facing this scenario in the 2^nd round against Zvonareva (she was 3-5 15-40 down to win 7-5 6-0) and in the 3^rd round against Svitolina (after dropping the first set she won 4-6 6-2 6-0).

With Muguruza it was a tougher test as the talented Spaniard is already playing like a top10 player (now she is ranked no. 24). Serena lost the opener 6-2, then she found her groove in the second, but Garbine wasn’t conceding much. Eventually Serena found a solution in the 2^nd set after breaking Muguruza in the 8^th game for a 5-3 lead. The crucial moment of the decider was when Serena managed to hold serve in a titanic 2^nd game when she saved 6 break points. At that point the Spaniard melted and Serena won the set and the match (2-6 6-3 6-2).

The American commented “It was a great match – congratulations to Garbine, she played so well. She did everything she needed to do in the first set. For once I didn’t start out slowly; she was just playing so well at the start. She hits the ball really, really big and really, really hard. But I started to focus from there and just relaxed a little bit.”

Cibulkova

Dominika is playing again her best tennis in Melbourne. Last year Cibulkova reached the Australian Open final to than have rather disappointing results during the rest of the year (after the title in Acapulco). Now the Slovak is back and she has beaten Vika Azarenka in a passionate 3 setter 6-2 3-6 6-3.  

Dominika commented “I always have tough matches with Vika. The tennis she plays goes well with mine. But today I would say it was the best match we’ve ever played against each other. I’ve lost to her before where I was a set up and maybe 5-2 or 5-3 second set, and I didn’t manage to finish it. Today I wasn’t thinking about the score, I was just going for it”

 

Head to head

Serena and Dominika have played each other 4 times. Head to head is 4-0 for Serena that has dropped only 1 set against the Slovak. They have played their last match in Brisbane 2014 (quarters) where Serena has won 6-3 6-3.

Prediction: Serena in 3.