Kenin and Barty are on collision course
American to face the Australian and No. 1 seed in the women’s semifinals.
MELBOURNE, Australia — Sofia Kenin’s breakthrough run at a Grand Slam tournament is continuing to the semifinals of the Australian Open.
The 14th-seeded Kenin defeated No. 78-ranked Ons Jabeur 6-4, 6-4 in the first match Tuesday on Rod Laver Arena. Both were playing in the quarterfinals at a major tournament for the first time.
Kenin’s next task will bring a much higher degree of difficulty because her opponent will be top-seeded Ashleigh Barty of Australia, who advanced with a 7-6 (6), 6-2 victory over two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
“I’m in the semis,” Kenin said. “Anyone I play, they’re playing really well.”
Kenin, 21, who was born in Moscow but moved to the United States as a baby, had her best run in a Grand Slam event last year by reaching the fourth round at the French Open. She lost against Barty, who won the tournament.
Against Jabeur, a 25year-old Tunisian who is the first Arab woman to make it to the last eight at a major, Kenin saved three break points in a long sixth game, then broke serve in the seventh game to set up the victory.
“It was a tough moment,” Kenin said. “I didn’t know it was 10 minutes [but] it was pretty long, the game. After that I got my momentum.”
Later on the same court, Barty saved set points in the 11th game and another in the tiebreaker before seizing the momentum against Kvitova.
She fended off eight of the nine break-point chances she faced in the first set before finally getting the upper hand when she won a 22shot rally, defending for much of it just to stay in the point, at 3-2 in the tiebreaker.
There’s a lot of local expectation riding on Barty, who is aiming to be the first Australian woman since Chris O’Neill in 1978 to win the Australian Open.
An Australian man hasn’t won since 1976. Barty is the first Australian woman since 1984 to reach the semifinals of the tournament.
Barty doesn’t expect to feel the pressure. She won her first title on home soil in Adelaide in the lead-up to this season’s first major.
“I’m not going to have anything but a smile on my face when I walk out onto this court,” Barty said of her next match.
In a women’s doubles quarterfinal match, Americans Coco Gauff and Catherine McNally lost 6-2, 6-4 to Hungary’s Timea Babos and France’s Kristina Mladenovic.
Twenty-time major champion Roger Federer of Switzerland and American Tennys Sandgren played a quarterfinal match late Tuesday and seven-time Australian Open men’s winner Novak Djokovic of Serbia had a night match against Milos Raonic of Canada.