Melbourne. Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz will face Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zverev in the Australian Open quarter-finals and Daniil Medvedev is also back in the last eight, joining the top six seeds. While the men's competition is playing up to the rankings, The women's competition, meanwhile, is really a story of two parts.
No. 12 seed Zheng Qianwen, a quarterfinalist at last year's US Open, is the highest-ranked player left in the top half of the bracket, where all four women who won on Monday reached the last eight at Melbourne Park for the first time. “The guys who get to the quarterfinals, of course, they all feel really good in this tournament,” Zheng said after her 6-0 6-3 win over No. 95 Oceana Dodin.
“It is one player against another player and we will compete.” She will next face No. 75-ranked Anna Kalinskaya. No. 50 Linda Noskova, who defeated top-ranked Iga Swiatek in the third round, will face No. 93 Dayna Yastremska.
The other half of the bracket still features three Grand Slam winners. No. 2, defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, will face 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, and US Open winner Coco Gauff will face Marta Kostyuk.
The first of the men's quarterfinals – 10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic vs. No. 12 Taylor Fritz and No. 4 Jannik Sinner vs. No. 5 Andrey Rublev – were scheduled for Sunday, before Alcaraz completed the Grand Slam set. Reached the last eight in Australia for the first time. The 20-year-old Alcaraz missed the 2023 Australian Open due to injury, but is making up for lost time. Also defeated Miomir Kecmanovic 6-4, 6-4, 6-0 in a short time.
“Every match I'm playing, I'm feeling better and better on courts I haven't played that much on,” Alcaraz, the only player to beat Djokovic in a major last year, said of his buildup here. ” “Hopefully it will be like Wimbledon. Yes, that can happen.” He has left only one set. Zverev has reached the quarterfinals here for the third time, but is coming back with a long five-set victory, including a four-hour 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(3) fourth seed. Includes round wins. No. 19 Cameron Nouri.
It was the 32nd five-set match ever in the tournament, a record for the Open era in Australia. Their match at the Margaret Court Arena went long after being slightly delayed in the third set when a protestor passed anti-war leaflets behind the court. Throw. The protestor was escorted out by security.No. 3 Medvedev, a two-time Australian Open runner-up, beat No. 69-ranked Nuno Borges 6-3 7-6(4) 5-7 6-1 and will next face No. 9 Hubert Hurkacz, who finished. French wild-card entry Arthur Cazaux cruises to a 7-6(6) 7-6(3) 6-4. Some unexpected charges continue in the women's field, with the likes of Noskova, Yastremska and Kalinskaya failing to qualify for a Grand Slam for the first time. Opportunities are opening up to reach the quarter finals.
Kalinskaya defeated No. 26 Jasmine Paolini 6-4, 6-2, ending a streak of 13 majors that did not advance beyond the second round. Yastremska defeated 18th-seeded two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka 7-6(6 ) 6–4 and 23rd seed Elina Svitolina had to retire with a back injury when trailing 3–0 to Noskova. ,
“I got cramps like shooting pain,” he said. “Couldn't do anything, my back completely shut down, just hurt a lot. I've had a few back injuries before where it was just fatigue… but this was really out of nowhere. I felt like someone shot me in the back.” The 19-year-old Noskova is now the youngest player to reach the Australian Open women's quarterfinals since 2008.
Yastremska saved the first set point against Azarenka and missed a break in the second but won six of the last seven games. “I feel like I need to take a thousand breaths because I feel like My heart is about to fall out of my body.”“During the match, I was imagining that I had already lost 25 times. I was losing the tiebreak, the second set I was losing, I always felt like I was running behind a train. “But because I'm a bit of a fighter, I think I won this match.”
