Jankovic beat Williams on the way to the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January but accepts she will need to be at her best to repeat the feat. “If you want to really win when she’s in form, you really have to be on the top of your level and you really have to go for every shot and really have to run a lot. So it will be difficult, but it’s doable.”

Murray close to Nadal upset

In the Saturday night unfinished semi-final between Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, the Scot was leading, 6-2, 7-6 (5), 2-3, but Nadal up a break in the third set. Murray, playing his first Grand Slam semi-final at 21, demonstrated his intent to cause serious commotion within the top five, which he’ll join at No. 4 next week.

He served so commandingly that No. 1 Nadal, the French Open, Wimbledon and Olympic champion, found zero break-point chances in the first two sets. Nadal then muffed two second-serve returns in the second set tie-break, hitting one so flimsily that Murray mauled it, and the other into the net as a 5-4 lead became a 7-5 loss.

Just as it seemed Nadal really had grown drained from his bruising summer, the global capital of effort broke Murray in the first game of the third set before the storm butted in. By the time Nadal and Murray resume, Federer will have rested 26 hours since hitting one last forehand past Novak Djokovic.

... contd.