Maria Sharapova is into the semi-finals of the Australian Open, having taken just 13 minutes more to get there than Novak Djokovic did to get past Stanislas Wawrinka into the fourth round.
Never before has anyone reached the last four of the women’s singles here with such ease as the Russian world No 2, who dropped just nine games in the process of setting up a match against China’s Li Na.
It is enough to stir up the debate about equal prize money that never quite goes away, and what cannot be denied is that the first two men through to the same phase of their event, Djokovic and Spain’s David Ferrer, have been made to work somewhat harder for it.
Nobody has had to strive harder for it than the 25-year-old Serb, who performed another of his bouncebacks yesterday by seeing off Tomas Berdych 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.
In a strange statistical quirk, it took him exactly half the time that it did to finish off Wawrinka less than 48 hours previously.
Djokovic and Sharapova are currently sitting on the same prize pot of £334 000 for getting this far. It is just that in Sharapova’s case it has taken her only five hours and 15 minutes of court time to do it compared to the 13 hours and eight minutes of the world’s best male player.
Read on at dailymail.
