Petkovic gives Sharapova shock exit

Reuters) - Former world number one Maria Sharapova suffered a shock fourth round defeat at the Australian Open on Sunday, bundled out 6-2 6-3 by bottom-wiggling German Andrea Petkovic.

Under pressure from the start, Sharapova committed 30 unforced errors in a performance which underlined her struggles since shoulder surgery in 2008, the year she won the last of her three grand slam singls titles in Melbourne.

Bosnian-born Petkovic celebrated reaching the last eight of a major for the first time with an on-court jig.

“It started off as a bet with my coach,” Petkovic told reporters of the cheeky dance of delight she peformed after her upset win.

“I’m very superstitious and since I started doing the dance I’m playing much better, so I’ll try to keep it up,” added the 23-year-old, who faces China’s Li Na in the quarter-finals.

Squealing mightily on every shot, 14th seed Sharapova could do little right in the first set, spraying wild shots all over Rod Laver Arena.

The Russian showed a few signs of a possible fightback during the second set after going 2-0 down but the hole she had dug for herself was too big against a dangerous opponent.

She fended off two match points with a pair of rocket forehand returns but Petkovic completed victory in 79 minutes with a deep serve Sharapova could only push into the net.

“It definitely wasn’t there,” said a rueful Sharapova, who since winning here three years ago has reached just one grand slam quarter-final.

“Last year I was gone on Monday. I stayed here a little bit longer this year.

“But there are many things that didn’t work today. I didn’t get my first break point until it was a set and 5-1. That’s not the type of tennis I want to be playing.”

Wacky Wozniacki bounces into quarter-finals

MELBOURNE - Caroline Wozniacki continued her news conference shenanigans at the Australian Open on Sunday, telling a tale of being scratched by a kangaroo and then later admitting on social networking website Twitter she had concocted the whole thing.

After making the quarter-finals with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova, the Danish world number one told reporters she was attacked by a baby kangaroo at a wildlife park outside of Melbourne and had needed to get medical attention.

“I thought I was going to be nice and try to help it out because it was just lying there. I thought maybe it needed some help... I found out that I shouldn’t do that,” said Wozniacki, after pointing to some tape covering a ‘wound’ on her leg.

“Yeah, it scratched me pretty well.

“I went to the doctor. They cleaned it and everything. They wanted to do a few stitches. I said, ‘there’s no way you’re going to do stitches’.

“It looked so cute. But once it started scratching me, I was a coward and I ran away.”

Wozniacki said on Twitter:

“Round 2 with the media:) hope you enjoyed my kangaroo story, hope you know i was just kidding:) see you on tuesday for round 3!”

She later returned to the interview to apologise to the media.

“I’m sorry if I’ve caused any harm or made your job a little bit more difficult,” she said. “But the kangaroo story, I made it up because it sounded better than what actually happened. I walked into the treadmill.”

The Dane ran her own media conference earlier this week after being fed up listening to questions about her status as a world number one without a grand slam title.

Wozniacki had trouble in the early exchanges against 46th-ranked Sevastova, who broke serve and marched to a 3-1 lead in the first set before the Dane settled and reeled off six games in a row.

Sevastova fought back to 4-4 after being a break down in the second set, but notched two unforced errors to hand it straight back and Wozniacki sealed the match after whipping a cross-court forehand winner.

Wozniacki, who has not dropped a set at the tournament, will next play French Open winner Francesca Schiavone, who overcame two-times grand slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in a marathon encounter last nearly five hours.