By Chris Davies
January 24 2005

Alicia Molik of Australia and Nathalie Dechy of France advance into their first Grand Slam quarter-final at the Australian Open, Melbourne 2005 The 10th seed who was facing a tough clash and posibble exit from the tournament when she faced former world number 1 and runner-up Venus Williams. The Australian who is bidding to become the first home winner since Chris O'Neil in 1978 fought for every point in a big hitting encounter.

Errors from the American helped Molik but fantastic winners from both ends made for a brilliant match and saw her advance into the quarter-finals for the first time ever claiming a 7-5, 7-6 (7-3) victory and now sets up Lindsay Davenport in the next round.

The world number one easily crushed her Croatian opponent Karolina Sprem who has the talent and game to upset any of the top ranked players but was no where near her best today. There were glimpses of Sprem attacking the Americans game and possibly breaking away in the second set after leading 2-0 but lost the next 6 games and lose 6-2, 6-2.

US Open and French Open runner-up was seen has a dark horse in the tournament after her previous efforts and was on course for a comprehensive win over Patty Schnyder claiming the first set then storming to a 4-0 lead. The Russian's game then just fell apart has Schnyder broke serve twice and held to draw level, then Dementieva's confidence collapsed and started to become a little tired on court. The Switzerland star advanced through the tournament with a 6-7, 7-6, 6-2 victory.

She will next play Nathalie Dechy who surprised herself to still be in the tournament at this stage with a impressive victory over third seed Anastasia Myskina 6-4, 6-2.

"I can't say that she won the match. I can say that I lost the match" Myskina said in her press conference after committing 45 unforced errors.

Only for Dechy to respond "I'm in the nest round and she's not. I won the match. I played the way I needed to"