Roger Federer, Alicia Mauresmo, Marat Safin and Maria Sharapova advanced to the quarter finals of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Sunday.

Roger Federer, Alicia Mauresmo, Marat Safin and Maria Sharapova advanced to the quarter finals of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Sunday.

Federer, men's world No.1, cruised through the first two sets 6-2, 6-2 but faced strong resistance from qualifier Marcos Baghdatisof Cyprus in the third set before winning it 7-6 (7-4).

Agassi, four-time Australian Open champion and eighth seed, beat Swedish 11th seed Joachim Johansson 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6(7-3), 6-4 although the 22-year-old rallied very well against the 34-year-old American and sent 51 aces during the whole match. In one set alone, Johansson served 33 aces.

Agassi's next opponent will be Federer, defending champion and hottest grand slam favorite in the history of the game.

Another quarter final was set up between 20th seed Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia, who beat 30th seed Thomas Johansson of Sweden 7-5, 6-3, 6-1, and Russian fourth seed Marat Safin, who beat Olivier Rochus of Belgium 4-6, 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-2).

Women's world No.2 Amelie Mauresmo of France crushed Russian Evgenia Linetskaya, 6-2, 6-4 and set up a heavyweight quarter-final with seventh seed Serena Williams.

Williams beat Russian Nadia Petrova 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. After winning the first set in just 22 minutes, Williams had to work hard to face strong challenge from the 11th seed, who missed a number of matches during the past two weeks due to injury and illness.

Petrova won the second set in which the American made more mistakes. Williams finally closed out the match with breaks in thefirst and final games in the third set.

In former 10 clashes between Mauresmo and Williams, the American won nine. But Mauresmo rallied very well at the Australian Open so far, losing only one set in the last four matches.

Sharapova, the No.4 seed, started slowly but was dominant at the rest of the match before winning 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 over Italian 15th seed Silvia Farina Elia.

Women's fifth seed Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova is the first to march into the quarter finals after casting aside fellow Russian Vera Douchevina 6-4, 6-2.

The two victories set up a clash in the quarters between 17-year-old Sharapova and 19-year-old Kuznetsova.

Source: Xinhua