Fans of Amelie Mauresmo, and I count myself as one of the biggest, have come to expect bad days from her. In her round of 16 match against Lucie Safarova, defending champion Mauresmo could not find her service game, and also forgot to use her recently-polished aggression, giving the young Czech the win of her career.

Safarova had a very good 2005, and then sustained injuries in 2006 that kept her out of many tournaments. When she returned, her confidence was low, but playing in the Hopman Cup this year reignited her spark and made her ready for the Australian Open. I saw Safarova play in the 2006 Family Circle Cup, and was impressed with her cracking serve. It probably won't be enough to get her past countrywoman Nicole Vaidisova in the quarter-finals, however. Vaidisova made short work of Russia's Elena Dementieva, whose game has been on the skids lately.

For a week, the ESPN commentators talked about 'the upcoming Hingis-Safina quarter-final as though it were a done deal. This really surprised me since Safina's round of 16 opponent, Li Na, has done nothing but improve over the past several months. Li has raised her game to a level that I thought would likely get her past Dinara Safina, and it did. Now she faces Martina Hingis; they have never played each other (each took very long retirements from the tour), and the match should be a good one. Hingis's serve at this Australian Open is better than it has ever been in her career, and the contest is wide open. At this point in the tournament, Hingis simply has to keep the good serving up or she will be in trouble.

Li, by the way, had a 75 per cent first-serve percentage against Safina, and she scored with 72 per cent of those serves.

Had Jelena Jankovic not played two weeks of gruelling, non-stop tennis (she won Auckland, then made it to the finals at Sydney), I would have predicted a comfortable win for her over Serena Williams. But given what Jankovic's body and mind had gone through, with only one day of rest, I thought she would be gone by either the third round or the round of 16. She played miserably against Williams - so miserably, it didn't even look like Jankovic across the net. Williams, for her part, was a lot of fun to watch and did some incredible shots. However, her next opponent, Shahar Peer, is a lot fresher than Jankovic was, and will probably give the out-of-form Williams some trouble. Peer easily defeated the number three seed, Svetlana Kuznetsova, in the round of 16.

Jankovic, in my opinion, is so loaded with talent that she is destined to win a Slam. But she also suffers from poor judgement. Her emotional meltdown over a line call at Wimbledon kept her out of the final, even though she was only five points from defeating Justine Henin-Hardenne. Given the amount of talent and the likelihood that she would go far in both tournaments, it was not a good idea for Jankovic to play both Auckland and Sydney.