World number three Serena Williams reached her 35th Grand Slam quarterfinal after beating Russia’s Maria Kirilenko in their Australian Open 2013 fourth round match at the Melbourne Park on Monday with a dominating 6-2, 6-0 score in less than one hour.
Up next for Serena Williams is fellow American and friend Sloane Stephens. The latter defeated Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia in three sets. Williams recently defeated Stephens in Brisbane where the former went all the way to win the title.
Stephens has been touted to be the next best thing in American tennis and at 19 years of age has been showing a lot of promise. She will be entering the world’s top 20 by virtue of reaching the quarterfinals.
Williams, on the other hand, is still in the running to become the new world number one by next week should she reach the final or even win the Australian Open title.
