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MELBOURNE: China's Peng Shuai wasted two match points against Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska before tumbling out of the Australian Open 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 in the fourth round on Monday.
Twelfth seed Radwanska outlasted Peng in three tight sets to win a tense battle in 2hr 44min on the Margaret Court Arena.
The two players had met three times previously with all three matches going the distance, Radwanska winning two times and Peng once.
They were evenly matched again on Sunday, with the 21-year-old Pole just shading the first set and Peng the second.
Peng looked on track when she secured an early break in the third with a series of penetrating ground strokes, but Radwanska broke straight back then broke again to open up a 3-1 lead.
However the Chinese player showed incredible fight to come again, breaking Radwanska twice then serving for the match at 5-4.
She brought up two match points but Radwanska bravely saved both as she levelled the set, then held her own serve to go to 6-5.
The pressure proved too much for Peng, who cracked as Radwanska attacked and produced three match points of her own.
Peng saved the first but weakly backhanded the second into the net, to the dismay of a vocal contingent of Chinese fans.
Former world number eight Radwanska is playing her first tournament since Beijing last October, after which she underwent surgery for a stress fracture in her foot.
She made her breakthrough in Melbourne in 2008 when she reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, which is still her best effort in a major.
She now takes on either tournament favourite and third seed Kim Clijsters or Russia's Ekaterina Makarova in the quarter-finals.
Peng is the third Chinese player to reach the round of 16 at a Grand Slam, behind Li Na and Zheng Jie, who both made the semi-finals in Melbourne in 2010.
She will now overtake Zheng to become Chinese number two behind Li, who has again reached the quarter-finals and will play Germany's Andrea Petkovic on Tuesday.
-AFP/jl
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