Murray on to quarters; Roddick, Soderling ousted
<p>Andy Roddick throws his hands in the air in frustration after losing a service game during his fourth-round match against Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka at the Australian Open on Sunday in Melbourne.</p>
MELBOURNE, Australia - Andy Murray moved into the Australian Open quarterfinals without dropping a set, beating No. 11 Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-1, 6-1 on Monday in an impressive victory that will heighten expectations about him breaking a long British drought.
Murray closed with an ace to eliminate Melzer in straight sets at Melbourne Park for the second year in a row.
The 2010 finalist gets a surprising opponent for his next match after 22-year-old Alexandr Dolgopolov stopped fourth-seeded Robin Soderling's eight-match winning streak with a 1-6, 6-3, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 victory.
Murray has lost only 22 games on his way to the quarterfinals, the same stage where he beat Rafael Nadal here last year.
"Last year I played some of the best tennis of my life," said Murray, who made only 10 unforced errors against Melzer. "I'm hitting the ball really well, I hope it can continue.
"But I don't want to get carried away - I've never won one of these things before."
He has lost to Roger Federer in two major finals, extending a long title drought for British men at the Grand Slam tournaments that dates to 1936.
Murray has only played Dolgopolov once, and is wary of his unorthodox game. The Ukrainian player recalled his only previous meeting with Murray, a loss in the Davis Cup, and was surprised at the pace of the ball.
"I remember I was expecting more," he said. "I thought he has a really big pace. I didn't play those kind of players in real life. I just saw it on TV. TV makes it look much faster."
Soderling hadn't dropped a set during his surge that started with his run to the title at the Brisbane tuneup event. No. 2-ranked Vera Zvonareva continued her roll toward a third consecutive Grand Slam final with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Iveta Benesova.
Zvonareva, who lost the Wimbledon final to Serena Williams and the U.S. Open final to Kim Clijsters last year, set up a quarterfinal match against No. 25 Petra Kvitova, who rallied to beat No. 22 Flavia Pennetta 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Andy Roddick's 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 fourth-round loss to 19th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka on Sunday night means there's no Americans in the men's or women's quarterfinals.
The eighth-seeded Roddick was the last American man standing. The women were out before the third round ended.
"Obviously wasn't the showing that we wanted, you know, but I'm doing what I can," Roddick said.
Roddick's ouster came on a day when Federer equaled Jimmy Connors' Open era mark by reaching his 27th straight quarterfinal at a major, and Francesca Schiavone won the longest women's match in Grand Slam history - a 6-4, 1-6, 16-14 victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova that took 4 hours, 44 minutes.
No. 3 Novak Djokovic and No. 6 Tomas Berdych also won in the fourth round. Among the women, No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki and No. 9 Li Na advanced, while No. 14 Maria Sharapova lost to No. 30 Andrea Petkovic.