MELBOURNE, Jan 22: Carlos Alcaraz completed a Grand Slam set by reaching the Australian Open quarterfinals for the first time, setting up a showdown against Olympic champion Alexander Zverev.
The 20-year-old Wimbledon champion missed the season-opening major in 2023 because of injury but is more than making up for lost time.
The No. 2-seeded Alcaraz beat Miomir Kecmanovic 6-4, 6-4, 6-0 in less than two hours Monday to open the night session on Rod Laver Arena.
He has dropped just one set en route to the last eight. Zverev is there for the third time but is coming off some long five-set wins, including a four-hour, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (3) fourth-round victory over No. 19 Cameron Norrie.
It was the 32nd five-set match so far at Melbourne Park, a tournament record in the Open era.
Their match on Margaret Court Arena was prolonged after being delayed briefly when a protester threw anti-war pamphlets onto the back of the court in the third set. The protester was escorted out by security.
No. 3 Daniil 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 ended the run of French wild-card entry Arthur Cazaux 7-6 (6), 7-6 (3), 6-4.
While the highly-ranked players continue to advance in the men’s draw, the seeded players keep toppling out on the women’s side. And that has opened opportunities for Dayana Yastremska and Linda Noskova to advance to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time.
Yastremska beat the 18th-seeded Victoria Azarenka 7-6 (6), 6-4, a two-time Australian Open champion, and No. 23-seeded Elina Svitolina had to retire after hurting her back when she was trailing Noskova 3-0.
Anna Kalinskaya beat No. 26 Jasmine Paolini 6-4, 6-2 in a later match.
Azarenka served for the first set twice and had two set points at 6-5 but couldn’t convert them. Yastremska was down a break in the second but rallied to win six of the last seven games.
There was no handshake, as is the convention between Ukrainian players and opponents from Russia and Belarus.
The first game of the Noskova-Svitolina match lasted 11 minutes and contained 20 points. Noskova broke serve and held for 2-0 before Svitolina had a timeout and received treatment on her lower back.
When she resumed, the Ukrainian’s serve speed was well down and her movement appeared compromised. After being broken for a second time and holding back tears, Svitolina shook Noskova’s hand and retired.
The 19-year-old Noskova beat top-ranked Iga Swiatek in the third round and now is the youngest player to reach the Australian Open women’s singles quarterfinals since 2008.
Medvedev had two match points at 5-4 in the third set but Borges forced a fourth, only to fade as the Russian pulled away for victory.
BOPANNA-EBDEN DUO IN QUARTERS
India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden entered the men’s doubles quarterfinals of the Australian Open with an impressive 7-6 7-6 victory over Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands and Croatia’s Nikola Mektic here on Monday.
The 43-year-old Bopanna and Ebden, who are seeded second in the draw, were broken early in both sets but showed themselves to be up to the task with some great returns against the 14th seeds.
The Indo-Australian pair will next meet the sixth-seeded Argentine duo of Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni.
They are also the highest seeded pair to remain alive in the men’s doubles competition and Monday’s win was a praiseworthy one against the former top ranked doubles pair in the world.
PROTESTER THROWS PAPER ON COURT
A pro-Palestinian protester threw papers onto an Australian Open court and briefly disrupted a match between Alexander Zverev and Cameron Norrie on Monday before being stopped by other spectators.
Olympic champion Zverev said he didn’t feel unsafe but questioned why it took several minutes for security to react, leaving it to tennis fans to intervene.
Protesters threw anti-war pamphlets onto at least two courts and also near the entrance to the tournament site.
At Zverev’s match, a woman wearing a face mask threw anti-war pamphlets from the stands onto the court behind the baseline during the sixth game of the third set on Margaret Court Arena.
Printed in black on the white pages was the message “Free Palestine” and “While you’re watching tennis bombs are dropping on Gaza.”
Ball kids gathered up the papers and the match continued after security escorted the protester away. (PTI)
