Defending women's champion Kim Clijsters has shown tremendous courage to fight her way into the quarter finals of the Australian Open, overcoming a serious ankle injury and saving four match points en route to an epic win over No.5 seed Li Na, while world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki is also through.
Clijsters, seeded 11, had defeated Li in last year's Melbourne Park final, but looked set for an exit after firstly she injured her ankle in the seventh game of the first set and she then faced four match points in a second-set tie-breaker.
She rallied to take that tie-breaker and then shot out to a 4-0 lead in the third set, before denying Li a late rally and taking the match 4-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 in two hours and 23 minutes in what was clearly the best match of the women's draw to date.
She now faces world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the round of eight after she swept aside former world No.1 Jelena Jankovic 6-0 7-5 in 103 minutes.
Both Clijsters and Li struggled on serve early and there were four breaks of serve in the first five games. In the end, Li's lower unforced error count, 7-11, played in her favour and she got the decisive break in the 11th game to take the first set.
The 2011French Open champion then got a real foothold on the match when Clijsters dropped her first service game in the second set. She handed it back in the sixth game but then raced to a 5-1, then a 6-2 lead in the tie-breaker.
A pair of errors from Li offered the Belgian a way back in, and she played an extraordinary lob to save a third match point, before Li cost herself with another poor shot at 6-5. Clijsters turned the match on its head by taking the tie-breaker 8-6.
The momentum had completely swung and Clijsters broke Li to lead 4-0, conceding just five points in one 27-point period.
Li looked destined for a humiliating exit, but rescued some pride by breaking in the eighth game. She saved a match point, but went down when she hit a simple backhand into the net.
In the night session, Wozniacki powered through to the quarter-finals for the second consecutive year with a dominant performance against Jankovic.
Wozniacki broke Jankovic's first three service games as she careered to a one-set lead in just 34 minutes.
And while Jankovic put up much more of a fight in the second set, twice breaking the Dane, she was unable to recover and failed to progress past the round of 16 for the fourth year in a row.
In what was a forgettable performance by the Serb world No.13, she more than tripled Wozniacki's unforced error count (50-15).
Earlier No.3 seed Victoria Azarenka become the first player to book a quarter-final spot, eliminating Czech Iveta Benesova in straight sets.
Azarenka has progressed through her first four matches without dropping a set, but Benesova, who also made the fourth round in Melbourne last year, provided the most fight the Belarusian has faced so far, saving four match points before succumbing 6-2 6-2 in an hour and 17 minutes
Azarenka next faces Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, who easily dismissed Germany's Julia Georges 6-1 6-1.
The Belarusian took control very early in the first match on Rod Laver Arena on Sunday, breaking her opponent in the first