MELBOURNE, Jan 20: Sixth seed Tim Henman’s Australian Open dreams were left in tatters on Sunday as he fell 6-2 7-6 6-4 in the fourth round to doubles specialist Jonas Bjorkman.
Having won the much-hyped Battle of Britain against Greg Rusedski on Friday, Henman - who had been the tournament’s highest surviving seed - was taught a tactical lesson by the Swede ranked just 64th in the world for singles, but number one in the world for doubles.
In the women’s draw, second seed Venus Williams showed no mercy, brutally dismissing 13th-seeded Bulgarian Magdalena Maleeva 6-0 6-3, while third seed Martina Hingis blew away Amanda Coetzer 6-1 6-0.
Williams meets eighth seed Monica Seles in the quarter-finals after Seles’s Spanish opponent Anabel Medina Garrigues joined a long injury list at the year’s first grand slam.
Medina Garrigues had been enjoying her best performance at a major but the unseeded 19-year-old’s progress was cut short in the sixth game of their fourth round match after she twisted her knee and had to concede.
Hingis needed just 44 minutes to seal one of her easiest ever victories on the Melbourne Park centre court.
She meets Adriana Serra Zanetti in the quarter-finals after the unseeded Italian beat Slovakia’s Martina Sucha.
Henman’s notoriously brittle big match temperament let him down on the big stage yet again as he was unable to rise to the occasion.
He has lost three Wimbledon semifinals and never reached a quarter-final at any other grand slam and simply failed to impose his game on Bjorkman, allowing the 29-year-old to dictate the pace throughout the contest.
Austria’s Stefan Koubek continued his remarkable run at the Open, beating Chilean qualifier Fernando Gonzalez 7-5 6-1 6-7 6-2.
The 25-year-old Koubek reached the quarter-finals of a grand slam for the first time in his career and will play Czech Jiri Novak for a place in the semifinals.
Novak, seeded 26th, also reached the quarter-finals of a major tournament for the first time when he overcame Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty 6-4 6-2 5-7 6-2.
RESULTS
MEN (prefix denotes seedings):
Fourth round: Jonas Bjorkman (Sweden) beat 6-Tim Henman (Britain) 6-2 7-6 (8-6) 6-4; Stefan Koubek (Austria) beat Fernando Gonzalez (Chile) 7-5 6-1 6-7 (3-7) 6-2; 26-Jiri Novak (Czech Republic) beat Dominik Hrbaty (Slovakia) 6-4 6-2 5-7 6-2; 16-Thomas Johansson (Sweden) beat Adrian Voinea (Romania) 6-7 (8-10) 6-2 6-0 6-4
WOMEN:
3-Martina Hingis (Switzerland) beat 15-Amanda Coetzer (South Africa) 6-1 6-0; 2-Venus Williams (U.S.) beat 13-Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgaria) 6-0 6-3; Adriana Serra Zanetti (Italy) beat Martina Sucha (Slovakia) 6-1 7-5; 8-Monica Seles (U.S.) beat Anabel Medina Garrigues (Spain) 4-2 retired—Reuter