Day 8 of the Australian Open saw five time champion Serena Williams knocked out in the fourth round along with men’s sixth seed Jo Wilfried Tsonga while Djokovic, Murray, Kvitova and Sharapova going through.

Ekaterina Makarova

Ekaterina Makarova ranked 56th beat Serena 6-2, 6-3. Serena who tries to play her way through tournament made a routine start having break point on her opponent’s first game but couldn’t capitalize. At 2-2 in first set, she lost serve looking slow and flat footed. Makarova played well making her opponent run corner to corner and drawing the error. The 23 year old Russian won the set 6-2.

Serena then broke Makarova’s serve at love to lead 2-0 in the second set but Makarova fought back winning four games in a row. Williams made 37 unforced errors and 7 double faults including 4 in one game. After her earliest loss since 2006, Serena said that she was not a 100% as she had a sore left ankle but said her opponent played well and deserved the win.

Makarova will next face fellow Russian Maria Sharapova who beat 14th seed Sabine Lisicki of Germany 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in battle of big hitters. In a match that saw wide fluctuations, Sharapova led 3-0 in the first set but then lost six games in a row to lose the set. The second set saw Sharapova lead 4-2 hitting some great returns and then won it at 6-2. The third game in the decider saw Lisicki losing 5 chances to break the Sharapova serve. The game lasting over 12 minutes proved crucial as Sharapova broke soon and won the match at 6-3.

Novak Djokovic beat home favourite Lleyton Hewitt 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 with the match ending just after 1 AM. Djokovic lost his first set of the tournament when he lost a little bit of focus leading 2 sets to love and 3-0 in the third set as Hewitt started firing with his ground strokes and broke Novak’s serve twice in that set. The third set saw Hewitt showing off his great defensive skills as he retrieved every ball that Djokovic threw at him. Serving for the third set at 5-4, Hewitt had set points three times only to see Djokovic produce stunning returns off the second serve to win the point each time. Hewitt finally closed the set on a service winner on his fourth set point.

Early in the fourth set at 1-1, Hewitt had a break point on Djokovic’s serve which he saved by forcing error by making Hewitt run one corner to the next. He closed out the game with 2 aces. Novak then closed out the match winning the set at 6-3. Djokovic now sets up a quarterfinal clash with 5th seed David Ferrer who beat Richard Gasquet the talented French man 6-4, 6-4, 6-1.

Murray won over Mikhail Kukushin 6-1, 6-1, 1-0 when his opponent retired with a left hip injury. Murray watched by his coach Ivan Lendl, said he had sought Lendl’s help because he had gone through the same problems he is facing losing his first four slam finals before winning eight. He will next face 22 Year old Kei Nishikori seeded 24th who upset the sixth seed Jo Wilfried Tsonga in five sets. The Japanese player is the first player from his country to reach the quarterfinal here in over 80 years.

Second seed Petra Kvitova beat former World No.1 Ana Ivanovic seeded 21 in straight sets 6-2, 7-6(2). Kvitova had a chance to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set but was broken without a fight. The second set went to a tiebreaker where Ivanovic served two double faults in her first two service points to give Kvitova a 3-1 lead. Kvitova closed out the tiebreaker easily and will next face Italian Sara Errani who beat Zheng Jie of China 6-2, 6-1.