A review of the latest Tennis news from the events taking place Down Under in Sydney and Hobart, where the likeable Juan Martin del Potro was playing his quarter-final match as he continues his comeback from a serious wrist injury, and Guernsey's Heather Watson was hoping to reach the semi-finals in her singles' match.
Sydney International (men's event)
Reigning Sydney International and former US Open champion del Potro found the qualifier, Mikhail Kukushkin from Kazakhstan just one match too many in his comeback event. Having knocked out the Italian number one seed Fabio Fognini in the previous round, the giant Argentinian had great hopes of progressing to the final stages of the tournament.
However, he came unstuck in straight sets at the quarter-final stage by losing two tie-breaks in a close match.
He did not seem too downhearted at the end of the match though, if a little disappointed to not gain even more court time ahead of the Grand Slam next week, as for him it was clearly a relief to be back playing at a good level of tennis again without pain in his previously troublesome wrist.
Leonardo Mayer of Argentina now faces Kukushkin in the semis after he conquered Julien Benneteau 6-3 7-6. The other semi-final will be between Luxembourg's Gilles Muller and Serbian Viktor Troicki, after they came through their matches against Bernard Tomic and Simone Bolelli.
Troicki needed three sets to defeat Bolelli, while home-crowd favourite Tomic pushed Muller all the way in two tie-breaks, before succumbing 15-13 in the mammoth second one to depart the tournament.
Hobart International (women's event)
Britain's Heather Watson continued her successful tournament in Hobart, by beating the Italian Roberta Vinci 7-6 6-2 to move into the semi-finals of the WTA event. After a comfortable victory over the dangerous American Sloane Stephens in the earlier round, she had to endure a tie-break against the former US Open quarter-finalist which she came through unscathed 7-0, before clinching the second set and the match 6-2.
It is only the third time that Watson has reached a WTA semi-final and at one point in the first set that feat had seemed highly unlikely, as she fell 5-2 behind to her seeded opponent. However, the number 49 world-ranked player rallied to force the tie-break and with the momentum now going her way, took the second set on her fifth match point.
Watson will face the American Alison Riske in the semi-finals tomorrow, who is slightly higher ranked than Watson in the world at 44 in what promises to be an intriguing match-up. The winner of that will face either American Madison Brengle (ranked 84th in the world) or Kurumi Nara from Japan (36 in the world), who play in the other semi-final.
It represents a marvellous opportunity one would think for Watson to claim a long overdue second ever WTA singles' title, following on from her previous success in the Japan Open in 2012. British women's tennis could certainly do with more WTA success as prior to Watson winning in Japan, they had to go back as far as 1988 when Sara Gomer won on the WTA tour. Watson can start creating better times by taking the Hobart crown.
