Sharapova demolishes Bouchard in Australian Open

Melbourne: Maria Sharapova showed she was in no mood to be replaced by the younger generation just yet as she demolished seventh seed Eugenie Bouchard 6-3 6-2 in 78 minutes to advance to the semifinals of the Australian Open on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old Russian has now beaten the talented Canadian 20-year-old in each of their four meetings, three of which have been at grand slams.

The second seed jumped on a clearly nervous Bouchard in the first game of the match by breaking serve and not allowing her opponent to settle.

The early setback affected the Canadian's timing as she made 20 unforced errors, before Sharapova broke again in the ninth game to take the first set in 41 minutes.

The five-times grand slam winner made another fast start in the second set, racing through her first service game and breaking in the fourth to give her the opening needed to set up a semi-final against 10th-seeded compatriot Ekaterina Makarova.

Ekaterina Makarova continued her impressive rise as a grand slam contender by dismantling listless third seed Simona Halep 6-4 6-0 to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Open on Tuesday.

The 10th-seeded Russian, who made her maiden grand slam semi-final at the U.S. Open last year, leaped on Romanian Halep's serve, breaking her twice in the first set and three times in the second to roar to a 5-0 lead.

A shell-shocked Halep was utterly overwhelmed and meekly surrendered the match by crunching a backhand wide of the tramlines after 69 minutes.