Women's seeds led by Lindsay Davenport, Maria Sharapova and Nadia Petrova made it through to the fourth round of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Friday.

World No. 1 Davenport lost one set to 18-year-old Russian 25th seed Maria Kirilenko, winning the match 6-4, 4-6 and 6-2 amid temperature of over 40 degrees on court.

The top seed will next play 14th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova who took less than an hour to eliminate Mara Santangelo of Italy 6-3 and 6-1.

Fourth seed Sharapova took little more than an hour to put out Jelena Kostanic 6-0 and 6-1. The Russian hit 18 winners to seven, made half as many unforced errors and won twice as many points.

Sharapova's next opponent is likely to be defending champion Serena Williams, who beat her in last year's semis.

It took another Russian, sixth seed Petrova only 72 minutes to end the the third round match against Italy's Maria Elena Camerin 6-1 and 6-2.

Eighth seed, the 2004 Open champion Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne defeated Virginie Razzano of France 6-4, 6-1 amid comfort after the temperature came down to the level that allows the stadium roof to be closed.

Source: Xinhua