MELBOURNE, Australia -- Helped by the Williams sisters' large haul of Grand Slam singles titles, players with 37 majors will contest third-round matches Saturday at the Australian Open.
Top-seeded Serena Williams, with 18 Grand Slam singles titles, will play No. 26 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine on Rod Laver Arena. Her sister Venus, with seven majors, plays Camila Giorgi of Italy. Joining them are two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
No. 1-seeded Novak Djokovic, who has won seven singles majors -- four of them here -- is also in action, as is defending champion Stan Wawrinka.
At stake is a coveted place at any Grand Slam -- the second week.
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LONG HISTORY: Djokovic takes on former top-10 player Fernando Verdasco for the 11th time -- the fourth at Grand Slams- and the Serbian holds a 6-4 advantage. They haven't met since Beijing in 2013, when Djokovic won in three sets. Three of Verdasco's wins have come on clay, yet the veteran Spaniard may be Djokovic's biggest threat so far in the tournament. "It's a match that I'll have nothing to lose and a lot to win," Verdasco said, smiling as he added: "Hopefully I will have my best day and he won't."
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SISTER SEMI? The Williams sisters have met eight times in Grand Slam finals, with Serena holding a 6-2 edge over Venus. An all-Williams final can't happen this year at Melbourne Park, but a semifinal is still possible. The highest-ranked player behind Serena in her quarter No. 11 Dominika Cibulkova, last year's Australian Open runner-up, while unseeded and two-time champion Victoria Azarenka is still around. No. 4 Petra Kvitova and No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska are the two highest seeded players in Venus Williams' quarter. Venus is dealing with an auto-immune condition called Sjogren's syndrome, which can cause joint pain and sap energy. She took seven months off tennis, and by the end of 2012 had climbed to No. 24. She is now ranked 18th and won her 46th career title in Auckland two weeks ago. "I think sometimes in life you just have to learn to deal with the cards you been dealt. I've just been trying to get used to my new life, I guess," she says. "I think it's just an adjustment to getting used to how I need to live now."
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SERIOUS ANALYSIS: Milos Raonic sounds like a thinking man's tennis player, at least when talking about his Saturday opponent, Benjamin Becker. Raonic has won two of their three meetings, including last year in Miami in straight sets. "He plays very compact, likes to use pace," Raonic says. "I just got to really keep everything really internal and make sure I do things right, then make the adjustments throughout the match as needed." In the second round, Becker came from two sets down to beat Australian veteran Lleyton Hewitt, while Raonic defeated American Donald Young in straight sets.
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ADVANTAGE SIMON?: David Ferrer and Gilles Simon have played seven times, and Ferrer has won five of those matches. If it sounds like it might be an unfair fight Saturday, maybe not -- both of Simon's wins have come on hard courts, the most recent at last year's U.S. Open in four sets. Four of Ferrer's five wins have been on clay.
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FAMILIAR FOES: U.S. Open runner-up Kei Nishikori is getting to know American Steve Johnson well -- mostly from the other side of the net. The two have played each other twice in the past seven months, including at the Brisbane International two weeks ago. Nishikori won in straights sets -- the second in a tiebreaker -- at the Wimbledon tune-up tournament in Halle and then also beat Johnson in the second round at Brisbane. "Good serve, really good serve," Nishikori said of Johnson, a 25-year-old Californian. "Both times (the matches) were really close. He comes to the net a lot and hits a big forehand. It's going to be tough."
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