Straight sets wins for Clijsters, Mauresmo, Schnyder

Amelie Mauresmo, Kim Clijsters and Patty Schnyder all secured straight-sets wins in the fourth round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

Both Mauresmo and Schnyder had little trouble dispatching their opponents on the way to a quarter-final berth, while Clijsters had to overcome a tough challenge from Italian Francesca Schiavone.

Mauresmo barely worked up a sweat as she overcame a flimsy challenge from Nicole Vaidisova to triumph 6-1 6-1 out on centre-court. The Frenchwoman was in deadly form from the opening serve and easily saw off her 16-year-old opponent in less than an hour.

Switzerland’s Schnyder also breezed through to the quarter-finals.

The tournament’s seventh seed needed little time to end the title aspirations of Russian Anastasia Myskina 6-2 6-1.

Schnyder also fired from the outset and before long had the first set. The second set followed shortly after and the Swiss was in sterling form as she raced away to a 5-0 lead.

Myskina then finally held her service game before her opponent bounced back to easily win the match.

Meanwhile, Belgian Clijsters struggled to get on top of Italian Schiavone in their duel on centre-court.

The tournament’s second seed looked troubled by injury as she hit an uncharacteristic 43 unforced errors to make victory tough for her.

However, Schiavone could not capitalise on numerous chances and in the end the experience of the US Open champion prevailed 7-6 (7-5) 6-4.

Clijsters looked rusty and the Italian 15th seed managed to break her opening serve, but the Belgian bounced back straight away to break the Italian and level the scores.

Schiavone looked to have nabbed a surprise first set lead when ahead 4-1 in the tiebreaker but Clijsters came back strongly to win it 7-5.

The world No 2 found the important break in the fifth game of the second set.

However, her jubilation was short-lived as Schiavone broke back her opponent’s serve moments later. But Clijsters rallied and nabbed her second break in a row to run away with the match.