Bye bye overrated #1
Congrats to the teenager
Congrats to the teenager
Your rapid recap of Day 7 at AO 2024.
On yet another day of surprise results at Melbourne Park, one of the more experienced players in the women’s draw returned to the fourth round.Eighteen years after her Australian Open debut, former world No.1 and two-time champion Victoria Azarenka is back in the last 16 for the 11th time in her career at what is her most successful Grand Slam.
The 34-year-old, who won the Melbourne major back-to-back in 2012-13 and who reached the semifinals 12 months ago, maintained her perfect head-to-head record against the in-form Jelena Ostapenko by beating the Latvian in straight sets, 6-1 7-5.
Vika is far too experienced to be fooled into thinking that going deeper in the draw will be a straightforward process, even though there are just seven seeds through to the women’s fourth round.
“There are no bad players in the fourth round of a Grand Slam,” she said. “If they are here, that means they worked their butts off and they played well and they deserve to be here.”
A new star was born under the Rod Laver Arena lights on Saturday night when 19-year-old Czech Linda Noskova blew the top half of the women’s event wide open, producing the shock of the tournament to beat world No.1 Iga Swiatek.
The world No.50 took control of the match midway through the second set to win 3-6 6-3 6-4, hammering 35 winners past the four-time major champion in the process. The result ended the Polish top seed’s 18-match win streak.
“I felt like I had everything under control until she broke me in the second set,” a stunned Swiatek said afterwards. “I had couple of chances to break her in the second set and I didn't use them.”
With Swiatek gone, it will be fascinating to see who can emerge from the top half with so many of the players that remain unfamiliar with the physical and mental demands of the second week of a major.
After the biggest win of her career, Noskova will next face 19th seed Elina Svitolina. Below them in the draw, Azarenka will take on qualifier and world No.93 Dayana Yastremska, who beat 27th seed Emma Navarro.
In the second quarter of the women’s singles, one of the semifinalists will emerge from a group of four players that features Italy’s 31st seed Jasmine Paolini, world No.75 Anna Kalinskaya, Chinese 12th seed Zheng Qinwen and French world No.95 Oceane Dodin.
Swiatek’s exit wasn’t the only big surprise on Day 7, as the in-form Grigor Dimitrov and last year’s semifinalist, American Tommy Paul, both went out.
World No.69 Nuno Borges became the first Portuguese ever to reach the last 16 in Melbourne when he ended Dimitrov’s run in four sets, while Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic saved two match points in the fourth set tiebreak before finishing off Paul 6-0 in the fifth.
Young Frenchman Arthur Cazaux continued his extraordinary run through the bottom half as a wild card in the draw when he dropped just seven games against 28th seed Tallon Griekspoor.
Three top-10 stars made sure they will be back on Monday, though, as second seed Carlos Alcaraz, third seed Daniil Medvedev and sixth seed Alexander Zverev all eased through.
Alcaraz was leading Chinese 18-year-old Shang Juncheng 6-1 6-1 1-0 when the teenager retired with a leg injury.
Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz and Britain’s Cameron Norrie – who put out 11th seed Casper Ruud in four sets – will also be back next week.
Your rapid recap of Day 8 at AO 2024.
There aren’t many things on a tennis court that Novak Djokovic hasn’t achieved, but beating a player without dropping a game at a Grand Slam is one of them.The world No.1 was on track to do exactly that when he led Adrian Mannarino 6-0 6-0 1-0 during a brilliant display at Rod Laver Arena on Day 8 before the Frenchman responded just in time to avoid becoming only the sixth player in history to suffer a dreaded ‘triple bagel’.
The world No.1 and 10-time champion in Melbourne eventually finished the job 6-0 6-0 6-3 to book a quarterfinal meeting with American Taylor Fritz.
Djokovic’s 32nd consecutive Australian Open match win means he will play in his 58th Grand Slam quarterfinal, and his 14th in Melbourne later in the week.
Fritz, who trails his head-to-head with Djokovic 8-0, produced the big upset of the day when he took out last year’s runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas in four sets 7-6(3) 5-7 6-3 6-3, his first win over a top 10 player at a major.
Alex de Minaur came close to becoming the first Aussie man into the Melbourne quarterfinals since Nick Kyrgios in 2015, but was eventually worn down by a brilliant Andrey Rublev on a memorable night under the RLA lights.
The world No.5 Rublev hit back from two sets to one down to survive 6-4 6-7(5) 6-7(4) 6-3 6-0 after four hours and 14 minutes.
Asked by on-court interviewer Jim Courier what it’s like to be part of a match like that, Rublev replied: “Better not to be inside my head at this time. It’s like a scary movie.”
Rublev’s next task is arguably one of the toughest in tennis right now, with young Italian fourth seed Jannik Sinner standing in his way.
The world No.4 is still the only man in the draw not to drop a set after he outplayed last year’s semifinalist Karen Khachanov 6-4 7-5 6-3. Khachanov did at least produce one of the shots of the tournament, however, when he pulled off this incredible ‘tweener’ lob.
Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka and fourth seed Coco Gauff produced the most impressive performances in the women’s draw on Sunday.
Sabalenka won her first Grand Slam title at Melbourne Park 12 months ago, and is looking unstoppable so far.
The world No.2 outclassed American Amanda Anisimova 6-3 6-2 and has dropped just 11 games on her way to the quarterfinals. Her longest match so far has been an hour and 10 minutes.
Last year’s US Open champion Gauff opened the Rod Laver Arena schedule, and was far too strong for Poland’s Magdalena Frech 6-1 6-2 on her way to her first AO quarterfinal.
The 19-year-old has nine successive wins already this year after winning the Auckland title during the second week of the season, and has dropped just a single set in the process.
Sabalenka will take on ninth seed and former Roland Garros champion Barbora Krejcikova, who ended teenager Mirra Andreeva’s run 6-4 3-6 6-2.
Gauff’s next match will be against 21-year-old Marta Kostyuk, who is having another memorable run in Australia.
The Ukrainian, who saved a match point against Elise Mertens in the second round, thrashed Maria Timofeeva 6-2 6-1 at the venue where she won the girls’ singles aged just 14 back in 2017.
Fritz sinks Tsitsipas to make first AO quarterfinal.
Standing at 3-3 in the final set of his fourth-round match with Stefanos Tsitsipas at Australian Open 2024 on Sunday, Taylor Fritz took a deep breath and cleared his mind.
What followed was an example to any player trying to play their best under pressure. The American didn’t overthink, he didn’t try to do anything different, he just let his body do what it’s been trained to do. It’s called being in the zone.The result was a 7-6 (3) 5-7 6-3 6-3 victory over the Greek, a finalist here last year, and a place in the quarterfinals of a slam for the third time, but first in Melbourne.
I'm really happy,” said the 26-year-old, after hitting 50 winners and just 19 unforced errors. “I think, start to finish, I played really well. Especially, I'm super-happy about the way I finished it.
The last three games of the match I really, really turned it on, almost like (I) was in a trance and everything. Just felt good. I felt like I knew exactly what shot to hit, the right decision to make on every ball. It's great. It's been a while since I've had that feeling, so it gives me a lot of confidence.”
In an era when every shot in every game in every match is analysed, with data available for use by coaches during matches, Fritz managed not to let anything get in the way of his tennis as he picked up his first win over a top-10 player in a slam.
It probably helped that he already knew he was going to win. “I told them (my team) that I was going to win,” he said on court. “My girlfriend said I was being a bit too confident."
Tsitsipas had won their three most recent encounters, but Fritz looked dialled in throughout.
“I just felt very relaxed and confident about the match, not really uptight, worried, like I can be, like I probably was for all my other matches to be honest," he said.
“I had a feeling I was going to play well. I guess what happened the last couple games where I just feel super, super locked in, like where I just am letting the ball go and I feel like I can't miss, I feel like I know the right shot to hit. Yeah, I mean, I wish I knew how to always get into that.”
By contrast, Tsitsipas admitted that he went into the match with a little more fear than usual.
“What I was thinking is that I have a big match coming up and there's an opponent that I've played before at the Australian Open who likes these courts, and his game is suited for hard courts and he's got a lot of power, he's got a big serve,” Tsitsipas said.
“These were things that I was for sure concerned going into the match and I had to be prepared to face. I didn't face them the best way, but he played really well and he deserves the win because he did everything possible to kind of not let me dictate or be in control of any point.”
Next up for Fritz is a meeting with 10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, who has won all eight of their matches.
Fritz pushed Djokovic to five sets when they met at the AO in 2022, but other than that, has not picked up a set against the 24-time Grand Slam winner, who advanced earlier on Sunday after beating Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in straight sets.
To be honest, the only decent match I've played against him in our last couple meetings was in Turin at the end of '22. In that match I served for the second set. It was pretty close. Since then when I've played him, I've played pretty poor, I think," Fritz said.
“I think that I have a lot more level to bring than I've previously brought against him. Hopefully I can play another match like today.”
| |||||||
| 220502 | Aryna Sabalenka | +175 | |||||
| 220504 | Cori Gauff | +190 | |||||
| 220512 | Qinwen Zheng | +1000 | |||||
| 220518 | Victoria Azarenka | +1200 | |||||
| 220519 | Elina Svitolina | +1400 | |||||
| 220580 | Linda Noskova | +1400 | |||||
| 220509 | Barbora Krejcikova | +2500 | |||||
| 220583 | Marta Kostyuk | +5500 | |||||
| 220550 | Anna Kalinskaya | +6600 | |||||
| 220617 | Dayana Yastremska | +6600 | |||||
| 220526 | Jasmine Paolini | +10000 | |||||
| 220590 | Oceane Dodin | +15000 |
| |||||||
| 09:30 PM | 210501 | Novak Djokovic | +105 | ||||
| 210502 | Carlos Alcaraz | +300 | |||||
| 210504 | Jannik Sinner | +425 | |||||
| 210503 | Daniil Medvedev | +900 | |||||
| 210506 | Alexander Zverev | +3300 | |||||
| 210505 | Andrey Rublev | +4000 | |||||
| 210509 | Hubert Hurkacz | +8000 | |||||
| 210512 | Taylor Fritz | +8000 | |||||
| 210534 | Arthur Cazaux | +15000 | |||||
| 210519 | Cameron Norrie | +15000 | |||||
| 210591 | Miomir Kecmanovic | +25000 | |||||
| 210592 | Nuno Borges | +25000 |
Alcaraz was favored (-2600) against Kecmanovic (+960) in this Round of 16 match.
