The Latest: Ivanisevic not pleased with corruption reports
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) The Latest from the Australian Open on Wednesday (all times local):
7:05 p.m.
Goran Ivanisevic is not one to shy away from speaking his mind. And the 2001 Wimbledon champion had plenty to say about the match-fixing allegations that have rocked the sport this week at the Australian Open.
First, he took exception with the BBC and BuzzFeed News reports that alleged tennis authorities had ignored evidence of match-fixing involving 16 players in the past decade.
As part of its investigation, BuzzFeed also devised an algorithm to identify players it said had been regularly involved in matches with suspicious betting patterns.
Ivanisevic said, ''You put some names in the computer and the computer puts your name out, like you're serial killer and then everybody's chasing you.''
He also believed match-fixing wasn't prevalent during his time on tour, saying, ''You didn't have this Internet betting, all this stuff, so I didn't even know you could bet on any sport in my time.''
As for whether it exists today, Ivanisevic said it ''probably'' does on the lower-level circuits. But he added that speculation about specific players isn't fair without evidence of wrongdoing.
''This is a serious thing,'' he said. ''It's worse than taking doping.''
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6:45 p.m.
Andy Murray reached the Australian Open semifinals for the sixth time in seven years with a 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-3 win over No. 8 David Ferrer, completing a rare double for Britain.
Johanna Konta had a 6-4, 6-1 win over Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai to become the first British woman since 1983 to reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament.
It's the first time since 1977 that two British players have reached the singles semifinals of a major.
''Johanna Konta has done unbelievable. She had some great wins here, beat a lot of seeded players,'' Murray said. ''Very excited to have a British woman in the latter stage of a slam, that's not happened for a long, long time.''
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3:55 p.m.
Gordon Reid had the biggest win of his career when he beat eight-time Australian Open and former world champion Shingo Kunieda in the quarterfinals of men's wheelchair tennis at Melbourne Park. Reid, who played before fellow Scotsman Andy Murray went on court for his quarterfinal in the main draw, beat Kunieda 6-3, 7-6 (1) to advance to a semifinal against Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina.
The 24-year-old Reid, who is ranked No. 4 in the world, says ''I'm absolutely thrilled to get through - he's a legend of our game.''
The only rule difference between wheelchair tennis and regular tennis is that the ball may bounce twice in the wheel version, including a second time outside the court.
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2:45 p.m.
Johanna Konta beat Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai 6-4, 6-1 to reach the semifinals at the Australian Open, becoming the first British woman to advance the last four of a Grand Slam event since 1983.
The Sydney-born Konta, who is making her debut in the main draw of the Australian Open and is ranked No. 47, beat seven-time major winner Venus Williams in the first round and reached the quarterfinals with 3-hour win over No. 21 Ekaterina Makarova, a semifinalist at Melbourne Park last year.
Konta, who has lived in Britain since she was a child and became a citizen in 2012, is the first British woman since Jo Durie at the 1983 U.S. Open to reach a major semifinal.
She will play No. 7 Angelique Kerber in the semifinals. Zhang entered the tournament with a 0-14 career record in Grand Slam main draw singles matches, but was on a seven-match winning streak in Melbourne, including qualifying.
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1:10 p.m.
Angelique Kerber needed all the belief she could muster to come back from 5-2 down in a set against a player she hadn't beaten in six career meetings.
But she managed that against Victoria Azarenka on Wednesday by telling herself ''just believe that you can beat her ... just forget the score, just play and go for it and try to play the best you can play.''
The German player had won the first set 6-3 and rallied to win the final five games of the second set to close out the match.
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1:00 p.m.
Angelique Kerber won five consecutive games in the second set and saved five set points to beat two-time champion Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 7-5 in the Australian Open quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Kerber broke Azarenka's serve to end the match, hitting a cross-court backhand at the net to beat the Belarussian for the first time in seven career matches.
The No.7-seeded German will play the winner of the later quarterfinal between Britain's Johanna Konta and Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai.
The other semifinalists - six-time champion Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska - were determined on Tuesday.
Both semifinals will be played Thursday, with the final on Saturday.
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