Davenport, Roddick Slam Into Quarters

Week 1 has passed, and along with it, most of the feel-good stories you hear so often during the first week of a Grand Slam tennis tournament.

Week 2 means the focus shifts from the interlopers, back to the likes of Roger Federer of Switzerland, Maria Sharapova of Russia, Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Lindsay Davenport.

Roddick and Davenport joined the other four in the Australian Open quarterfinals with straight-set victories today at Melbourne Park. The second-seeded Roddick defeated little-known Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, 6-3, 7-6 (6), 6-1, in 1 hour 27 minutes in the fourth round at Vodafone Arena, and next, on the same court, the top-seeded Davenport beat Karolina Sprem of Croatia, 6-2, 6-2, in an hour, also in the fourth round.

Through four matches, Roddick and Davenport have each lost a set. She needed to go three sets in the second round against Michaela Pastikova of the Czech Republic, and Roddick lost a set to Greg Rusedski of Britain in the second round.

Davenport’s path to the quarterfinals was swifter and smoother today. Sprem opened with back-to-back double faults and lost the first three games.

“I felt today was a big improvement from my last few matches and felt I did some things a lot better in terms of ground-strokes and being more aggressive, being more aggressive with my play and going forward,” said Davenport, who will play No. 8 Venus Williams or No. 10 Alicia Molik of Australia in the quarterfinals.

“If my game’s improving, that’s always a good sign.”

Roddick was not entirely pleased with his performance. Kohlschreiber largely outplayed him in the second set, but still lost it, despite leading 3-1 in the tiebreaker.

“I just felt like I was fighting it a little bit more than I had the first three rounds,” Roddick said. “I’m not too concerned. I got through it OK. We got through it. The good thing is I don’t feel like I had my best day and we’re sitting here talking about a three-set win. So that’s good.”

His prime weapon was in fine form, however. Roddick hit 15 aces, double-faulted twice and never lost his serve, facing only one break point.

“I served great. I’ve been serving pretty well throughout the event,” he said.

There was still plenty of talk about Andre Agassi’s superb performance in the fourth round, surviving 51 aces from Joachim Johansson of Sweden, winning in four sets. Roddick saw part of the match. He was asked whether he could imagine hitting 51 aces and losing.

“Well, no, because I couldn’t imagine hitting 51 aces,” he said, laughing. “So the losing part is irrelevant because the first part’s a no.”

Roddick has almost quit being amazed by Agassi because he almost expects the unexpected from him, saying: “He set the standard so high for himself that it’s not surprising to me to see him winning matches. It’s not going to be surprising two years from now if he’s still here winning matches.

“People have been talking about, ‘It could be his last’ since before I was on tour.”

Roddick will next play Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 winner against No. 12 Guillermo Canas of Argentina. There are two Russian men in the final eight, which, oddly enough, matches the Russian women, as No. 4 Sharapova will play her countrywoman, No. 5 Svetlana Kuznetsova, in the quarterfinals.

Two of the favored Russian women, No. 3 and French Open champion Anastasia Myskina and French and U.S. Open runner-up, No. 6 Elena Dementieva, were upset today in the fourth round.

So, how do you say sophomore jinx in Russian?

“Maybe that’s not the Russian day today,” Myskina said.

No. 12 Patty Schnyder of Switzerland lost the first set and trailed, 0-4, in the second set but managed to defeat Dementieva, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4), 6-2, in 2:42.

Said Dementieva: “What can I say? Such bad luck today. I was 4-0, 30-0. I didn’t take my chance. There is always a very important game, very important point in a match. If you are not taking it, that can change the whole match.”

No. 19 Nathalie Dechy of France defeated Myskina, 6-4, 6-2, in the fourth round, and after a good start, the Russian went a little light on giving credit.

“Yeah, I think she played a pretty good match today,” Myskina said. “Her forehand was really [good]. She didn’t do a lot of unforced errors. It was mostly I missed the whole match. So I can’t say really that she won the match; I can say that I lost the match.”

Dechy played her first Grand Slam event in 1995 and this is the first time she has reached the final eight. She will play Schnyder in the quarterfinals but did not plan on celebrating just yet.

“As I said, the tournament is not over yet. It’s only the beginning of the second week, so I still want to be in that state of mind,” Dechy said.