Serena Williams of the US reacts after her loss to Ekaterina Makarova of Russia. -Photo by AFP

MELBOURNE: The Australian Open women’s draw was thrown wide open Monday after Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova shocked Serena Williams in the fourth round, as Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova won in straight sets.

Makarova, the world number 56, reached a grand slam quarter-final for the first time when she stunned a below-par Williams 6-2, 6-3.

There were no such problems for Kvitova, who held off a late fight-back from Ana Ivanovic to win 6-2, 7-6 (7/2) and move into a quarter-final showdown against Italian Sara Errani, a 6-2, 6-1 winner over China’s Zheng Jie.

Williams, a 13-time grand slam winner, was expected to cruise past Makarova, who surprised seventh seed Vera Zvonareva in the third round.

But almost from the first point it was obvious that Williams, who suffered an ankle injury this month in Brisbane, was not her usual self as mistakes came thick and fast from her racquet, 37 in all.

Makarova broke Williams twice in the first set to win the opener in 31 minutes, but the American seemed to get back on track with an early break in the second — only to surrender it the next game.

Makarova held serve to level the set at 2-2, then broke again as a frustrated Williams served three double faults, the last to concede the game.

The Russian confidently moved to a 5-3 lead, before attacking Williams’ serve and bringing up her first match point at 30-40.

Williams saved the first match point, then two others with big serves, but on the fourth the American sent a forehand wide and Makarova was through to a clash with either Caroline Wozniacki or Maria Sharapova.

“It’s an amazing feeling, it’s unbelievable,” Makarova said. “She’s an unbelievable player and I’m just really happy.”

Williams refused to blame any injury problems, although she conceded she was “not 100 percent”.

“I think she played really well. She went for broke on a lot of her shots.

I made 37 errors. That kind of tells the story of the match,” Williams said.

Four different women have won the last four grand slams – including three first-timers – and Williams’ loss makes this year’s Melbourne winner even harder to predict.
Kvitova, Errani, Sharapova and Sabine Lisicki are among the potential beneficiaries on Williams’ side of the draw, while the main threat in the other half is Kim Clijsters, who injured an ankle in Sunday’s win over Li Na.

In other action on Monday, Kvitova recovered from an embarrassing air swing to see off Ivanovic.

An under-pressure Ivanovic was serving at 3-5 to stay in the match when she threw up a despairing defensive lob from behind the baseline. Kvitova moved in for the kill but somehow missed the simple smash and the ball hit her in the chest.

Ivanovic held serve and then broke Kvitova to force a second-set tiebreak, but the world number two recovered to dominate the breaker and notch up an impressive victory.

“It was a really easy point and I missed it, actually I don’t know why,” a bemused Kvitova said.

She will now take on Errani, who played some rock-solid tennis to get past Zheng. The Chinese number two had a day to forget with 47 unforced errors in just two sets.

The Italian had never been past the third round of a grand slam before but was in control from the start as she dropped just three games to down the world number 38 in 86 minutes.