Federer on track for seventh Open title
John Pye
Roger Federer has played on Rod Laver Arena a hundred times and has six Australian Open crowns in his collection of 20 grand slam titles.
The 37-year-old tennis statesman has developed a loyal following over 20 consecutive visits for the seasonopening major.
After beating 21-year-old American Taylor Fritz 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 yesterday on the centre court at Melbourne Park, and reaching the Round of 16 at a grand slam tournament for the 63rd time, he raised his racket to the crowd. It was not unlike what a batter scoring a century would do to acknowledge 100 at the nearby Melbourne Cricket Ground.
He’ll next play 20-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas, who draws a big, vocal crowd to Melbourne Park.
‘‘I think I wanted to get out of the blocks quickly. I knew of the threat of Taylor,’’ said Federer, who has won 97 of his 110 matches overall at Melbourne Park. ‘‘I think I had extra focus today.’’
Tsitsipas had a 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7) 6-4 win over Nikoloz Basilashvili earlier on Margaret Court Arena to become the first Greek man to reach the fourth round at multiple majors. He reached the same Wimbledon last year.
Big sections of Greeks sang and waved the blue and white flag and scarves in the crowd. Melbourne has the highest concentration of Greek people of any city outside of Greece, and is getting a lot of attention.
‘‘I’m delighted,’’ he said. ‘‘I feel so comfortable. I feel like playing at home. It’s exciting to have such an atmosphere. I never get to play with so many Greek people supporting me . . . and, and, and, Australians!’’
While rain prevented early play on outside courts at Melbourne Park for the first 21⁄2-hours of Day 5, matches went ahead on the show courts.
At one stage, Greek fans had to split their time between the adjoining Rod Laver and Margaret Court Arenas.
There was no split loyalties on Rod Laver, where local favourite Ash Barty became the first player through to the fourth round with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Maria Sakkari.
It was first time a Greek man and woman have advanced to the third round at the same grand slam tournament since 1936.
Barty continued the so-called ‘‘Barty Party’’ by ending Sakkari’s run, and will play either former champion Maria Sharapova or defending champion Caroline Wozniacki in the next round.
In the only other completed match by early afternoon, 2010 round at Kiwis Marcus Daniell and Michael Venus will square off against each other in the second round of the doubles at the Australian Open in Melbourne today.
Daniell and his Dutch partner, Wesley Koolhof, came from a set down to beat Aussies Lleyton Hewitt and John Patrick Smith 3-6 6-1 6-4.
The match was played on a packed court seven with most of the crowd supporting Australian legend Hewitt and Smith. Daniell and Koolhof got off to a sluggish start and their opponents had them under pressure on serve, converting one of their four break point chances. Daniell and Koolhof never got a look on Hewitt and Smith’s serve in the opening set.
However it was a different story in the second set as Daniell and Koolhof stepped up their serving and converted two of four break point chances to level the match.
After Bolt and Koolhof held serve to start the deciding set, Hewitt was broken in his opening service game and while Daniell was taken to deuce in his next game, he held to consolidate the break and he and Koolhof went on to complete the win.
Meanwhile Valentina Ivanov, winner of last month’s New Zealand Championships, won her second round qualifying match, against Russian Polina Kudermetova 1-6 6-1 6-4, to make the main draw at the Australian Junior Open.
Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych beat No 18-seeded Diego Schwartzman 5-7 6-3 7-5 6-4. Berdych, who has reached the quarterfinals or better in seven of his previous eight trips to Melbourne Park, will meet either 2009 champion Rafael Nadal or local favorite Alex de Minaur in the next round.
Meanwhile, American 17-yearold Amanda Anisimova has notched one of the biggest wins of her burgeoning career, stunning 11th seed Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets to move into the Australian Open fourth round.
The youngest player remaining in the women’s draw blew the highly rated Belarusian off the court
6-3 6-2 in a little over an hour. Sabalenka is the second seeded scalp in two matches for the 87thranked Anisimova, who swatted aside 24th seed Lesia Tsurenko in the second round.
Scrambling from side to side on the baseline, Anisimova produced one of the shots of the first week, with a loopy slice forehand at full stretch getting past Sabalenka and landing in the corner.
‘‘This is an unreal feeling. I’m really feeling good out here. I’m playing some good tennis,’’ the teenager said.
She will meet either No 8 seed Petra Kvitova, who she beat at Indian Wells last year, or Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic in the next round. Britain’s Johanna Konta has voiced her concerns about tennis players toiling away into the early hours after her Australian Open match with Spain’s Garbine Muguruza started at 12.30am and finished after 3am yesterday (AEDT).
Muguruza finally won what is believed to be the latest starting match in Australian Open history, edging Konta 6-4
6-7 (3) 7-5 in a marathon that concluded at
3.12am in Melbourne.
‘‘I don’t agree with athletes having to physically exert themselves in the wee hours of the morning,’’ Konta told BBC Sport. ‘‘I don’t think it is healthy. In fact, it is quite dangerous.
‘‘However, Garbine and I were both in the same position and, with the circumstances, we really put on a great match and it’s just a shame more people couldn’t enjoy it.’’
A few hundred spectators dotted the stands at Margaret Court Arena, which has a seating capacity of 7500. One woman took up three seats to herself for a snooze.
‘‘I seriously can’t believe there’s people watching us at 3.15,’’ two-time major champion Muguruza said in an on-court interview, then joked: ‘‘Like, who cares?’’
The second-round match was delayed because the day session ran longer than expected – Venus Williams needed three sets to win her match there – and the first contest of the night session was a men’s match that lasted five sets.
Konta said there was discussion of moving her match to Court 3, but the seagulls that dot the tournament grounds had left their, um, mark there.
According to an Australian Open spokeswoman, Muruguzu and Konta were given the option of having Court 3 cleaned; it should have taken 15 minutes.
But the players heard there was rain in the forecast, so decided to stay put, because Margaret Court Arena has a roof and Court 3 does not.
The tournament said the previous latest start on record in Melbourne was 11.59pm for a women’s match between Elise Mertens and Daria Gavrilova a year ago.
The record for the latest finish? That’s 4.34am for a 2008 men’s match between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis.
Muguruza, a former world No 1 who is seeded 18th, managed to convert the only two service breaks of the match, including in the last game.
Asked afterward what she planned to do, Muguruza had a simple plan: breakfast.
The biggest beneficiary of the timing of it all might be Timea Bacsinszky, the Swiss player who faces Muguruza today for a spot in the fourth round.
Bacsinszky’s victory on Thursday ended more than 10 hours earlier than Muguruza’s win did.
‘‘I will recover as much as I can, because it was a tough match,’’ said Muguruza, who won the French Open in 2016 and Wimbledon in 2017 but has never been past the quarterfinals at the Australian Open.
‘‘Tomorrow is a day off, but I have to be [focused]. The tournament is not over.’’
– AP/Stuff