Your rapid recap of Day 4 at AO 2024.
Sixteen-year-old Mirra Andreeva insisted she was nervous before walking onto Rod Laver Arena to take on her idol Ons Jabeur early on Wednesday. Watching her produce the upset of the tournament so far, you wouldnāt have known it.Just 20 minutes into the match ā played under the roof after a wet start to Day 4 ā the teenager was heading to her bench having just bageled the three-time Grand Slam finalist 6-0.
After 54 minutes it was all over, the world No.47 producing a demolition job on the stunned Tunisian sixth seed 6-0 6-2, a performance of staggering maturity and quality that surprised even herself.
āIn the first set, I showed amazing tennis,ā admitted Andreeva, who finished runner-up in the girlsā singles 12 months ago. āI honestly didnāt expect that from myself.ā
Incredibly, three 16-year-olds all played matches on the main show court on Wednesday, but Andreeva was the only one to book a spot in the third round.
Second seed and defending champion Aryna Sabalenka took care of another of that teenage trio in the night session, improving throughout a 6-3 6-2 victory over Czech qualifier Brenda Fruhvirtova to keep her title defence on track.
Reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff didnāt have everything her own way at Margaret Court Arena but still went through in straight sets against fellow American Caroline Dolehide 7-6(2) 6-2.
All four of the top eight seeds in action in the menās draw came through second-round matches. Fourth seed Jannik Sinner was the first through on MCA, and dropped just six games in the process against Dutch qualifier Jesper de Jong.
Later, top seed Novak Djokovic extended his Australian Open win streak to 30 matches by beating Alexei Popyrin in a tight four-setter, although the Australian had four set points to go up two sets to one. There were wins too for fifth seed Andrey Rublev and seventh seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, last year's runner-up.
Two Aussies kept the flag flying for the home nation as menās No.1 Alex De Minaur and womenās qualifier Storm Hunter enjoyed safe passages.
āDemonā continued his strong start to the year by outplaying talented young Italian Matteo Arnaldi 6-3 6-0 6-3, while doubles world No.1 Hunter took out Germanyās Laura Siegemund to set up a third-round meeting with ninth seed Barbora Krejcikova.
There were mixed fortunes for three seeded American men. Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton both progressed, but Frances Tiafoe went out to Czech world No.75 Tomas Machac 6-4 6-4 7-6(5).
Tiafoe wasnāt the only seed bundled out of the tournament. Polandās Magdalena Frech beat 16th seed Caroline Garcia 6-4 7-6(2), after the Frenchwoman had beaten Naomi Osaka in the first round. Later, eighth seed Maria Sakkari was sent packing by Elina Avanesyan 6-4 6-4 in a match that finished at close to 1am on Thursday.
Young American Alycia Parks beat 32nd seed and former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez to set up a meeting with Coco Gauff on Friday, while qualifier Maria Timofeeva came back from a set down to beat former world No.1 and 2018 champion Caroline Wozniacki in another surprise result.
Your rapid recap of Day 5 at AO 2024.
It was truly a day to remember at Australian Open 2024 on Thursday, thriller after thriller entertaining fans onsite and around the world from the first ball to last.āTwenty-allā isnāt a scoreline you often hear from a chair umpire, but thatās where Elena Rybakina and Anna Blinkova found themselves moments before the conclusion of one of the most memorable deciding tiebreaks of all-time, and ā at 42 points ā the longest tiebreak in a singles match in Grand Slam history.
Blinkova missed two match points serving for victory against the world No.3 at 5-4 in the deciding set, before the tennis world sat glued to a shootout that went on and on.
Back and forth it went, a capacity crowd spellbound by what they were witnessing. Blinkova missed another seven match points before finally converting her 10th to win it 22-20 in a shootout that had lasted over half an hour. She saved six match points in the process.
"This day I will remember for the rest of my life,ā said the world No.57 after securing the biggest win of her career. āI will never forget it.ā
That memorable contest was just one of a handful that went to the wire on Day 5.
First it was the world No.1 Iga Swiatek who narrowly escaped becoming the biggest casualty of the week so far when she scrambled past American Danielle Collins in a three-set thriller.
The four-time Grand Slam champion from Poland recovered from 1-4 and then 2-4, 0-40 in the third set to outlast the Australian Open 2022 runner-up 6-4 in the decider after 3 hours and 14 minutes of power tennis.
āHonestly, I was in the airport already,ā was Swiatekās honest opinion of how close she came to crashing out.
Collins surprised everyone in her post-match press conference by announcing that this season will be her last on tour, and so that Rod Laver Arena marathon is the last singles match she will ever play at Melbourne Park.
The day session drama inside RLA didnāt stop there. Next it was world No.2 Carlos Alcaraz who was pushed to the limit by Lorenzo Sonego.
The Italian almost forced a deciding set before Alcaraz finished it 6-4 6-7(3) 6-3 7-6(3) in a duel that will be remembered for another potential shot of the tournament ā a running backhand pass around the net post from the Spaniard.
Sixth seed Alexander Zverev and 11th seed Casper Ruud both won deciding fifth-set tiebreaks against Slovak qualifier Lukas Klein and Aussie Max Purcell respectively.
Britainās Cameron Norrie looked on his way out only to fight back from two sets to love down against another qualifier, Italyās Giulio Zeppieri, 6-4 in the fifth set.
And, like Rybakina, another two top 10 stars were bundled out.
American Jessica Pegula was comfortably beaten 6-4 6-2 by French world No.51 Clara Burel, a former girls runner-up at Melbourne Park.
Young Danish eighth seed Holger Rune suffered a four-set defeat to French 21-year-old Arthur Cazaux, the world No.122 moving into the third round at a major for the first time.
Other seeds to disappear on Thursday were Daria Kastakina, who lost to former US Open champion Sloane Stephens, and in the menās draw Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Jiri Lehecka and Jan Lennard Struff.
Your rapid recap of Day 6 at AO 2024.
After the beautiful chaos of comebacks, record-breaking tiebreaks, upsets and late finishes at Melbourne Park on Thursday, some sort of order was restored on Day 6 as many of the big names eased into the fourth round with a lot less drama.A spot in the last 16 at a major is serious business, and many of the seeds stepped things up with Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Jannik Sinner and Stefanos Tsitsipas all producing at least one ābagelā set during comfortable wins.
Fourth seed Sinner brushed aside Argentine Sebastian Baez for the loss of just four games to move into the fourth round without dropping a set in the tournament so far.
While he was taking care of business on Margaret Court Arena, just next door defending champion Sabalenka blasted her way past Lesia Tsurenko without losing a single game.
Tsitsipas was in a hurry too as he swept aside young Frenchman Luca Van Assche 6-3 6-0 6-4 at the same time as reigning US Open champion Gauff was racing past fellow American Alycia Parks 6-0 6-2.
Novak Djokovic made sure both of last yearās singles champions moved into the second week when he marked his 100th match at Melbourne Park with his 31st consecutive Australian Open victory.
The Serb played his best match of the week to beat Argentine Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-3 6-3 7-6(2).
After demolishing sixth seed Ons Jabeur in the second round, 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva produced one of the comebacks of the tournament to beat Diane Parry in a deciding tiebreak having trailed 1-5 in the final set.
The teenagerās next test comes against ninth seed and former Roland Garros champion Barbora Krejcikova, who ended qualifier Storm Hunterās run in three sets under the Rod Laver Arena lights.
Maria Timofeeva made sure there would be at least one qualifier in the fourth round, the world No. 170 scoring the biggest win of her career to beat 10th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia.
Others to go through in the womenās draw included American Amanda Anisimova, former Australian Open girls' champion Marta Kostyuk and Polandās Magdalena Frech.
The big surprise in the menās event came when French veteran Adrian Mannarino dismantled last yearās quarterfinalist and 16th seed Ben Shelton 6-4 in the fifth set to set up a meeting with Djokovic.
There was better news for another American, though, as Taylor Fritz beat Hungarian Fabian Marozsan to book a date with Tsitsipas.
Last yearās semifinalist Karen Khachanov beat Tomas Machac in four sets and will be back to play the in-form Sinner, while Alex de Minaur kept the Aussie flag flying as he swept past Italyās Flavio Cobolli.
New top 10 star āDemonā will play fifth seed Andrey Rublev, who was too solid for Sebastian Korda during a straight-sets win late in the day.
