Serena survives as ill Azarenka quits
Serena Williams survives scare as Victoria Azarenka retires ill
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Monday, 26, Jan 2009 08:38
Second seed Serena Williams survived a major scare at the Australian Open after she was handed a place in the quarter-finals when teenager Victoria Azarenka was forced to retire.
The 19-year-old Belarusian, seeded 13th in Melbourne, was leading 1-0 in sets after taking the first 6-3.
However, after a bout of illness left her nearly unable to stand she was forced to quit the match when a break of serve down in the second set to her senior opponent.
Afterwards, Williams comforted her distraught counterpart as she left the court in floods of tears.
Elsewhere, the Russians Elena Dementieva, seeded fourth, and Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded eighth, both secured their places in the last eight of the tournament.
Kuznetsova was handed fairly simple passage into the quarter-finals after China's Zhi Zheng was forced to retire while 1-4 down in the first set.
And Dementieva, who is being tipped by some pundits to go all the way to the final in this year's opening grand slam, was an easy winner over Slovakia's 18th seed Dominika Cibulkova 6-2 6-2.