After the seventh day of the Australian Open we have two quarterfinal pairs in the bottom half of the draw: Li Na [6] vs. Agnieszka Radwanska [4] and Maria Sharapova [2] vs. Ekaterina Makarova [19].

Li Na was broken in the first game of the match and climbed back from 5-3 and 6-5 down in the tiebreak to take the first set and then cruise through the second against seed No.18 Julia Goerges for a 7-6(6) 6-1 victory and her first Grand Slam quarterfinal since her French Open triumph one and a half years ago. Player with best win-loss record of the season will be her next opponent – Agnieszka Radwanska, who improved to 13-0 in matches and 26-0 in sets in 2013 by beating Ana Ivanovic 6-2 6-4, ending the encounter with two aces in a row. Li and Radwanska have an interesting recent history. Li quite routinely won their last three meetings in 2012, but Radwanska was victorious in their only 2013 clash in the semifinals of Sydney. Overall, Li leads 5-4.

Maria Sharapova reached the quarterfinals losing just five games! In her last match, against Kirsten Flipkens, the Russian's score was 6-1 6-0, against Venus Williams she lost four games, and in her first two matches she gave out no games to her opponents. Sharapova next faces the same player as last year at the quarterfinal stage of the Australian Open – compatriot Ekaterina Makarova, who upset injury-hampered Angelique Kerber 7-5 6-4, the highest-seeded victim in the women's draw. Sharapova leads Makarova 4-0 in their head-to-head record. (photo: Tidalist)

With back-to-back titles in Auckland and Sydney, Agnieszka Radwanska came to the Australian Open as the most prominent player of the season and the Pole started the sunny Grand Slam with a 7-5 6-0 victory over local wildcard world No.307 Bojana Bobusic, thus extending her 2013 streak to 10 matches. The fourth-seeded Radwanska, who has made three quarterfinals at Melbourne Park, dropped serve three times in the first set and saw her opponent serving for the first set at 5-4, before finding her range and benefiting from Bobusic's 41 unforced errors. Next for Radwanska is Irina-Camelia Begu.

You know that you're the whole package in the WTA world when you accompany your great success at tennis tournaments with big sponsorships and fancy photoshoots. The 23-year-old Radwanska now has that kind of lifestyle.  Read more »

Omair has been a regular contributor on Women's Tennis Blog, but now he has his own website and in the days leading up to the Australian Open he employed his love of stats to predict how Top 8 seeds will perform at the first Grand Slam of the season.

Omair's position in the articles is purely statistical, as he evaluated players' chances based on the past performance of players having the same seeding and based on the previous Australian Open results of the respective players. It's nice to see a statistical aspect, but you know that much more plays a part in whether a player will succeed, like who is in their section of the draw, possible injuries, mental preparation, etc.

Nevertheless, let's see the statistical analysis for each of our Top 8 stars:

• Victoria Azarenka and Australian Open 2013 - No.1 seed
• Maria Sharapova and Australian Open 2013 - No.2 seed
• Serena Williams and Australian Open 2013 - No.3 seed
• Agnieszka Radwanska and Australian Open 2013 - No.4 seed
• Angelique Kerber and Australian Open 2013 - No.5 seed
• Li Na and Australian Open 2013 - No.6 seed
• Sara Errani and Australian Open 2013 - No.7 seed
• Petra Kvitova and Australian Open 2013 - No.8 seed

Great work, Omair! I know you poured in a lot of your free time in these articles!

Subsequent addition: Check out Omair's analysis of the women's singles draw.

Agnieszka Radwanska capped perfect two weeks with a 6-0 6-0 thrashing of Dominika Cibulkova in the final of the Apia International Sydney. The Slovakian, always hot or cold, finished the wonderful week that featured victories over Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and seeds No.2 and No.3 Angelique Kerber and Sara Errani with an embarrassing double-bagel loss to the in-form top seed. The last time we had a 6-0 6-0 score in a WTA final was more than six years ago, at the 2006 Quebec City, when Marion Bartoli defeated Olga Puchkova.

The Sydney final started with Radwanska’s double fault and ended with Cibulkova’s double fault. Cibulkova couldn’t keep a ball in court and recorded a 15-36 winners-unforced errors differential to Radwanska’s 7-8.

Radwanska has now taken 18 straight sets, which include titles in Auckland and Sydney, and extended her record to 4-0 in WTA finals where she was the top seed. Moreover, Radwanska has now won eight of her last nine finals at non-majors. A big thank you to Chris Skelton and his amazing Twitter account for these unique stats!

En route to her 12th career title, Radwanska defeated Kimiko Date-Krumm in the second round, Roberta Vinci in the quarterfinals, fourth seed Li Na in the semis and rounded off the tournament by demolishing Cibulkova. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Agnieszka Radwanska and Li Na both entered the Premier-level Sydney semifinal with perfect win-loss records this season, owing to their title runs in Auckland (Radwanska) and inaugural Shenzhen (Li), but the higher-ranked Pole spoiled Li's undefeated run, even though it was Li who had led their head-to-head 5-3, including 3-1 last season.

Li battled hard in her last night's match against qualifier Madison Keys and today she saved seven match points before finally succumbing to tiredness and the top-seeded Radwanska, who was leading the encounter throughout.

On a better note for Li, the WTA has announced that the big Tokyo tournament that will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year will be replaced by an event in Li's hometown of Wuhan in China in 2014. The tournament will have the prize money of about $2 million.

The other semifinal was between Dominika Cibulkova and second seed Angelique Kerber and Cibulkova prevailed 6-2 4-6 6-3. Even though Cibulkova entered the match with a 2-0 record against Kerber, both those victories happened before Kerber made it big in the tennis world and Kerber was favored for appearance in the Sydney final.

Radwanska has now won eight matches in a row and is 3-0 against Cibulkova, but the peers haven't faced each other in years, precisely, since 2008! (photos: Ralf Reinecke)