MELBOURNE — Sloane Stephens has heard a lot of advice from Serena Williams. Pointers on her groundstrokes, and even on her grunts.
It has been mostly gentle encouragement, occasionally spiced with headline-making comments from Williams, who has predicted the 19-year-old American will one day top the women’s rankings.
As Stephens learned earlier this month, though, it’s one thing to play with Williams, another to play against the 15-time Grand Slam champion. When they meet tomorrow at the Australian Open, Williams will have the experience of 34 previous Grand Slam quarterfinals behind her.
With a comeback 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 win over Bojana Jovanovski, Stephens qualified for her first quarterfinal at a major tournament.
“It will be tough obviously. It’s quarters of a Grand Slam,” said Stephens, who is daughter of the late former New England Patriots running back John Stephens. “There won’t be that, like, first time, ‘Oh, my God, I’m playing Serena.’ That’s kind of out of the window now. So that’s good.”
As for Williams, she suffered a recurrence of her right ankle injury today while playing doubles with her sister Venus.
Serena’s motion was limited as the Williams sisters were defeated by the top-seeded Italian duo of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in three sets.
Earlier, Li Ni advanced to the semifinals with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, ending the Polish player’s 13-match winning streak to start the year. Li next plays the winner of a late match between Maria Sharapova and Ekaterina Makarova.
On the men’s side, Spain’s David Ferrer, the No. 4 seed, rallied to beat compatriot Nicolas Almagro, 4-6, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-2. In the semifinals, Ferrer will face Novak Djokovic or Tomas Berdych.
No. 2 Roger Federer and U.S. Open champion Andy Murray stayed on course for a semifinal in their half of the draw.