Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova posted a career best result at the Australian Open with her 7-5 4-6 6-3 victory over Elina Svitolina. The 11th seeded Svitolina battled hard, but in the end the Russian’s power was too much. Svitolina struggled in the clutch, converting just five of her nineteen break point chances in the match. In the third set Pavs got the third and final break of the set, and after a lengthy game where she served for the match, she finally closed it out. Having previously made the quarterfinals in the three other Grand Slams, Pavs will now have the chance to reach her first ever AO quarterfinal.
Dan Evans ensured he will break the ATP top 50 for the first time in his career, as he upset Bernard Tomic in three hours, 7-5 7-6 7-6. A hostile Aussie crowd, and Tomic’s father saying that Evans wasn’t “good enough to practice with his son” a few years ago didn’t phase Evans, as he held his nerve in both of the tiebreaks that were played. Tomic played a sloppy first set, losing his serve in half of his service games. The second and third sets were tighter affairs, Tomic clawed a break back when Evans was serving for the second set, but couldn’t take the tiebreak, and he also failed to break Evans late in the third set when he had three chances to do so, going on to lose the tiebreak, and the match. Evans was simply a solid ball striker from both wings, and moved better than Tomic, who got caught flat footed by Evans’ whippy backhand at times. With Andy Murray the world #1, Evans on the rise, along with Jo Konta doing great things on the WTA side, it’s the best time in years to be a British tennis fan.
The aforementioned Murray eased past a spirited Sam Querrey, surrendering just ten games in the match. Querrey didn’t play poorly, but Murray returned too well and didn’t give him adequate chances on serve as Querrey only had three break point chances all match.
Fan Favorite Men Reach Fourth Round
Roger Federer, Kei Nishikori, Stan Wawrinka, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga all reached the second week of the tournament in style on Friday. Federer was like a fine wine against Tomas Berdych in a routine three set victory, as Berdych lacked belief and failed to show up with good tennis from the start of the match. A smooth result for Federer boasts well of his chances to make a deeper run in the tournament.
Nishikori got the breaks he needed against Lukas Lacko, winning in straights, while Wawrinka and Tsonga fought off game efforts from Viktor Troicki and Jack Sock respectively to win four set matches. Troicki nearly took Wawrinka in a fifth, but Stan powered past him in the tiebreak 9-7. Sock lost the first two sets against Tsonga in narrow fashion, took the third set in a long tiebreak to generate hope, but Tsonga didn’t buckle in the fourth, breaking and winning it.
The other men’s winners were serve and volleyer Mischa Zverev, who had a surprisingly easy time with Malek Jaziri, winning in four sets, and Andreas Seppi, who needed two tiebreaks and four sets to get past Steve Darcis.
Veterans Venus and Kuznetsova Highlight Women’s Victors
Venus Williams surrendered just one mercy game to Ying-Ying Duan, as she dominated her Chinese counterpart 6-1 6-0. Svetlana Kuznetsova also rolled back the years, beating Jelena Jankovic in a 9-7 third set thriller. Kuznetsova could have gotten out of the match in straight sets, and despite the win, she may be ruing in her chance to avoid unnecessary fatigue.
#1 seed Angelique Kerber finally got a win in straight sets, as Kristyna Pliskova took too long to gather momentum against the defending champion. Coco Vandeweghe was impressive, overpowering Eugenie Bouchard in three sets, while American Alison Riske wasn’t as lucky, falling to a motivated Sorana Cirstea in straights.
Ash Barty dashed Australian hopes as qualifier Mona Barthel won in three sets, rounding out the women’s results, Garbine Muguruza was a straight set winner against Ana Sevastova.
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