Sorry, mate! No. 1s end Aussie hopes

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur faced the best in the business and could be excused for wishing they had skipped work when a half million other Aussies took a day off.

Roger Federer and Serena Williams ended local hopes of breaking a three-decade drought at the Australian Open. The top-ranked Federer beat former No. 1 Hewitt 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 Monday night at Rod Laver Arena. Federer said he’d been playing Hewitt since they were 14 and they were old friends and rivals, but it didn’t stop him from beating the Australian a 15th straight time.

Williams, ranked No. 1 and the defending champion, defeated No. 13 Stosur 6-4, 6-2 in the previous match on center court at Melbourne Park.

Williams lost to Stosur in their last meeting and decided from the start to make sure the fans were not a factor. She kept everybody quiet, conceding only seven points on serve in the 65-minute match.

“It’s important when you’re playing a local girl to not let the crowd get too involved or else they’ll kill you,” Williams said.

The main evening news broadcast broke into the Williams-Stosur coverage.

The match was pushed back because Nikolay Davydenko’s win over 2009 semifinalist Fernando Verdasco went to five sets, undoubtedly longer than programmers banked on.

And so the marquee matches featuring the last two Aussie hopes for a first winner since the late 1970s fizzled the night before Australia Day, the national holiday.

News reports estimated that one-third of employees across Australia on Monday took a “sickie” — Australian slang for a work absence without a proper excuse — to give themselves a four-day weekend through Tuesday’s holiday.

The day’s play brought a record crowd of 49,073 for the second Monday at Melbourne Park, and these story lines: Federer will play Davydenko and 2008 champion Novak Djokovic will meet 2008 runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals; Serena and Venus Williams are each a win away of setting up a sisters semifinal.

Venus Williams advanced 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 over Francesca Schiavone, the first time she’s dropped a set in six matches dating back eight years against the Italian.

Venus will play No. 16 Li Na, who ousted U.S. Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-3 and joined 2008 Wimbledon semifinalist Zheng Jie to give China two players in the quarterfinals of one Grand Slam tournament for the first time.

Li beat Venus in their only previous match — the quarterfinals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Serena, who has won the Australian title each odd-numbered year since beating Venus for the 2003 championship, will play seventh-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, who beat No. 9 Vera Zvonareva of Russia 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in a late match.