Sharapova cranks up the volume

Maria Sharapova at this stage of the tournament is playing as well as anyone and she would not want to drop that form however slightly or Canada's young gun Eugenie Bouchard would pounce and pick up the spoils. The seventh seed has been doing great things here too and this quarter final hopefully would live up to its hype.

As is true with every tournament Maria is in fine voice and her "dulcet" tones become louder every match.  Until now only the outer suburbs of Melbourne had been subject to her output which tends to vary from a young child screaming at the top of its lungs to the boozy incomprehensible rantings of a New Years Eve reveller. Nevertheless today it must have been broadcast to country Victoria and the quiet days fishing on the Murray disturbed somewhat.

Eugenie Bouchard was definitely effected but the damage to her eardrums was secondary to the dire straits in which Sharapova's top class tennis was placing her from early in this match.

The first service break in the first game had more to do with the jittery nerves of Bouchard who double faulted and stumbled her way to 0-40 and could not recover that mess and Sharapova just stood impassively and shouted 'come on!' which sounded like Lleyton Hewitt except he would have been berated for cheering an opponent's misfortune.

Maria also served a double fault but she was accurate and heavy with her groundstrokes causing Eugenie to once more contribute enough garbage to warrant an additional game to be added to the Russian tally.

A better behaved Canadian backhand reaped a couple of points and allowed serve to be held in the third game for Bouchard but she was intimidated by the presence of the tall second seed at the service line and failed to trouble the scorers while Sharapova strolled to 3-1.

4-2 arrived but not before Bouchard saved a break point and Sharapova saved two.

At 3-5 Bouchard could not hold back the break points she had been helping to create for herself with unforced errors and Sharapova broke for a second time to win the first set 6-3.

Sharapova was even sharper in the second set, not offering a single break point, cutting down her errors, and her forehand continued to create havoc for Bouchard.  The inevitable break of serve came in the fourth game and once the next game was confirmed in the Russian's custody it was 4-1 and almost closing time for Eugenie.

Bouchard held for 2-4 but at 2-5 and deuce Sharapova played two forehand winners to ice the match 6-3 6-2, making Eugenie seem like a beginner at times.  Semi final an all Russian encounter with Makarova.