Wacky Wozniacki bounces into quarter-finals

By Ian Ransom

MELBOURNE, Jan 23 - Caroline Wozniacki continued her news conference shenanigans at the Australian Open on Sunday, telling a tale of being scratched by a kangaroo and then later admitting on social networking website Twitter she had concocted the whole thing.

After making the quarter-finals with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Latvia's Anastasija Sevastova, the Danish world number one told reporters she was attacked by a baby kangaroo at a wildlife park outside of Melbourne and had needed to get medical attention.

"I thought I was going to be nice and try to help it out because it was just lying there. I thought maybe it needed some help... I found out that I shouldn't do that," said Wozniacki, after pointing to some tape covering a 'wound' on her leg.

"Yeah, it scratched me pretty well.

"I went to the doctor. They cleaned it and everything. They wanted to do a few stitches. I said, 'there's no way you're going to do stitches'.

"It looked so cute. But once it started scratching me, I was a coward and I ran away."

Wozniacki later said on Twitter:

"Round 2 with the media:) hope you enjoyed my kangaroo story, hope you know i was just kidding:) see you on tuesday for round 3!"

Wozniacki had trouble in the early exchanges against 46th-ranked Sevastova, who broke serve and marched to a 3-1 lead in the first set before the Dane settled and reeled off six games in a row.

Sevastova fought back to 4-4 after being a break down in the second set, but notched two unforced errors to hand it straight back and Wozniacki sealed the match after whipping a cross-court forehand winner.

Wozniacki, who has not dropped a set at the tournament, will next play French Open winner Francesca Schiavone or two-times grand slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova.

(Editing by John O'Brien)