Clijsters tunes in to Oprah escapism

KIM CLIJSTERS kept her mind clear ahead of her victory over experienced Amanda Coetzer in the Australia Open with a spot of Oprah Winfrey.

In a bid to avoid the emotional turmoil of watching boyfriend Hewitt play, and eventually lose, his fourth round tie on Rod Laver Arena, the Belgian fourth seed tuned into the American chat show to “take her mind off everything”.

But by the time the 19-year-old was out on court, she was fully focused on the job in hand and emphatically beat Coetzer 6-3 6-1.

Clijsters was on immediately after Hewitt’s demise and it took her just 57 minutes to reach the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park for the second consecutive year.

She is in the last eight of the Australian Open having dropped only 10 games in four straight-sets victories and could not be in better shape to land her first Grand Slam.

“My tennis has never been as consistent as it is now,” said Clijsters, who has won four of her last five tournaments.

“I used to play one or two good matches, then maybe one or two not so good. Now I’m not having that.”

Hewitt is bound to be at court-side when Clijsters takes on Russian eighth seed Anastasia Myskina, who beat in-form Chanda Rubin 4-6 6-4 6-1 in a tight clash on the Vodafone Arena.

If she wins that clash, Clijsters will meet either top seed and tournament favourite Serena Williams or Meghan Shaughnessy.

Williams would have had to battle harder for her 6-4 6-1 victory over Eleni Danilidou if the Greek girl’s game had not gone to pieces.

She served eight double faults to undermine an otherwise impressive first-set display before Williams charged to victory in the second.

Shaughnessy has sent down most aces in the tournament so far with 23, while Williams is two behind.

Williams will face Shaughnessy in prime form after the 25th seed extended her season’s record to 11-0 with a hard-fought three-set victory over Russia’s Elena Bovina.

Shaughnessy arrived in Melbourne on the back of victory at the WTA tournament in Canberra but was forced to dig deep on Margaret Court Arena.

However, after losing the first set, the American dealt better with the conditions and ran out a 5-7 6-2 6-4 winner in just under two hours 20 minutes.