Published : Thursday, 11 January, 2018 at 12:00 AM Count : 27
Angelique Kerber of Germany hits a return to Venus Williams of the US in their women's singles second round match at the Sydney International tennis tournament in Sydney on Tuesday. photo: AFP
SYDNEY, JAN 10: Former world number one Angelique Kerber says she is looking for more confidence-boosting matches ahead of next week's Australian Open after knocking Venus Williams out of the Sydney International. The German overcame a first-set fade-out to beat the American second seed 5-7, 6-3, 6-1 late Tuesday and continue her 2018 revival. The two-time Grand Slam champion remains unbeaten in six matches this year following last week's Hopman Cup mixed-teams campaign in Perth and now meets Dominika Cibulkova in Thursday's quarter-final. Kerber started 2017 ranked world number one but by the end of the season had slumped to 21, and she headed into the Sydney event ranked 22. Now the left-hander is looking for a run of matches to further restore her confidence heading into the year's opening Grand Slam tournament. "Yes, not looking back anymore. I'm happy how the year starts. I have been doing a lot of work," said the 29-year-old. "I'm just looking forward to have a lot of matches before going to Melbourne, and now I have another one. "Let's see how many I will get. But this is actually just a goal to playing matches and then going with a lot of confidence to Melbourne." Kerber started the first set stronger and looked to have Williams's measure with a 5-3 lead and two set points before the world number five rallied. -AFP
