Clijsters and Sharapova prevail

12 April 2012

Grand slam champions Maria Sharapova and Kim Clijsters moved a step closer to hoisting another major trophy after both claimed straight-sets victories on the sixth day of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park.

Rain caused the majority of the matches on the outside courts to be either delayed and moved to the main courts or postponed until Sunday - but both Sharapova and Clijsters easily accounted for their less-experienced rivals.

Top seed Sharapova overcame 30th seed Tathiana Garbin of Italy 6-3 6-1, while Clijsters inflicted a 6-3 6-3 defeat on Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine.

Sharapova admitted afterwards: "I thought (my match) was pretty good.

"I thought I was a bit slow in the beginning of the match. I was letting her play her game a little too much."

Clijsters said: "I'm very happy we're going into the second week. This is what you do it for, this is where it all starts from.

"There's no better feeling than knowing all the work you do in the off-season pays off."

Three-time champion Martina Hingis continued her love affair with the year's first grand slam, overcoming Japan's Aiko Nakamura 6-2 6-1 in the third round.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in