Maria Sharapova Powered into the Semi Final of Australian Open 2008

Maria Sharapova stormed into the semi final of Australian Open 2008 after projecting a straight-sets victory in the quarter final against top seed Justine Henin. The Russian star, faced strong challenge from Henin in the first set, but the second set was all about Maria Sharapova. Justine Henin could not show any resistance in the second set, suffering the third defeat to Sharapova. With the 6-4, 6-0 victory, Maria Sharapova has taken the revenge of her defeat to Justine Henin in the WTA Championship Final in Madrid last year.

Maria Sharapova, the fifth seed, started off well winning the first three games in a row and got the break point in the second game of the first set. However, Justine Henin bounced back in the fourth game to make it 3-1. Henin put on a strong resistance from the sixth game of the first set to win three successive games to make it 4-5. However, Henin found it useless when Maria Sharapova wrapped up the first set in the next game 6-4.

In the second set, Justine Henin saw an unstoppable Maria Sharapova, who started it in the similar fashion breaking Justine Henin twice and reeled off the bagel in sheer dominance. Sharapova dropped no game in the second set. After experiencing an injury-pronged 2007, the tennis world has seen another Sharapova today at the Melbourne Park. Sharapova’s fiery performance was in evidence of her confidence and dominance.

Maria Sharapova will face third seed Jelena Jankovic in the semi final of the tournament. Jelena Jankovic defeated Serena Williams 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter final of Australian Open 2008. However, the dominance Sharapova showed against Justine Henin, it seems that Jelena Jankovic has to face some strong challenges from Maria Sharapova in the semi final of Australian Open 2008. Maria Sharapova was the finalist of Australian Open last year where she lost to eventual champion Serena Williams. Now, let us see if Maria Sharapova can go a step further this time around.