Venus in quarters after 6-3, 7-5 win No. 24 Pavlyuchenkova is next; Nadal rallies past German teen
MELBOURNE, Australia — Venus Williams returned to the quarterfinals for the ninth time at the Australian Open, where she first made the final eight on debut in 1998.
Williams, 36, a seven-time major winner, prevailed, 6-3, 7-5, for a fourth-round win over No. 181-ranked Mona Barthel.
Barthel won three matches in qualifying and then beat two Australian wild cards and Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig in the first three rounds.
Williams will next play No. 24-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who beat No. 8 Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-3, 6-3, in the opening match of Day 7 at Rod Laver Arena.
Pavlyuchenkova’s win over fellow Russian Kuznetsova left Williams as the only Grand Slam winner left in that quarter of the draw.
“I was really challenged to play my best tennis,” Williams said. “It’s wonderful to get through to the quarterfinals against an opponent who’s on fire.”
Williams hasn’t advanced beyond the quarterfinal round at Melbourne Park since her loss to younger sister, Serena, in the 2003 final.
Rafael Nadal had a good, hard look at the future before pulling a few tricks from his past to hold it back — for now.
Nadal, a 14-time Grand Slam winner still recovering from a couple of months off with an injured left wrist, rallied for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-2 win over German teenager Alexander Zverev to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open.
Nadal, 30, of Spain, finished stronger in the 4-hour, 6-minute match on Rod Laver Arena as Zverev, widely touted as a Grand Slam champion of the future, tightened up with cramping and nerves.
“I enjoyed a lot this great battle. I was losing the last couple of times in the fifth set and I said to myself, ‘Today’s the day,’” said ninth-seeded Nadal, who had lost eight of the previous nine times he had trailed, 2-1, in a best-offive-sets match.
Nadal attributed his superior finish to the experience of 236 previous matches in the majors.
“Well, fighting — and running a lot,” Nadal said, when asked to explain how he pulled off the win. “I think you know, everybody knows how good Alexander is. He’s the future of our sport and the present, too.”
It was Zverev’s 15th Grand Slam match, but he had been on a three-match winning streak against top-10 players.
“Now I’m disappointed, but I know that this was a great match,” Zverev, 19, said. “That was a great fight.
“He’s probably one of the fittest tennis players in the history of the game, so ... there are a lot of positives in this match.”
Nadal finished with 43 winners and 34 unforced errors, while Zverev — hitting harder, using a wider array of shots and trying more to find the lines — had 58 winners and 74 unforced errors.
Grigor Dimitrov and Richard Gasquet didn’t start their third-round match until 11:58 p.m., most likely the latest start for a match at the Australian Open.
After grinding through four games in 24 minutes, No. 15 Dimitrov picked up pace and finished off 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 at 2 a.m. — well short of the Grand Slam record 4:34 a.m. finish for the match between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis in 2008.
Serena Williams has had time on her side, reaching the fourth round without dropping a set to stay on course in her bid for a record 23rd Grand Slam title. Williams beat fellow American Nicole Gibbs, 6-1, 6-3, and didn’t face a break point until she was serving for the match.
Dropping serve in that game was her only lapse in a match that then extended just beyond the hour — to 63 minutes, to be precise. The six-time Australian Open champion next faces No. 16 Barbora Strycova.
“I don’t have anything to prove in this tournament. Just doing the best I can,” Williams said. “Obviously, I’m here for one reason.”
In one of two matches that finished just before midnight, U.S. Open runner-up Karolina Pliskova rallied from 5-1 down in the third set to beat Jelena Ostapenko, 4-6, 6-0, 108. Ostapenko twice served for the match and twice she was broken, winning only one point in each game.
In the other, No. 22 Daria Gavrilova beat 12th-seed Timea Bacsinszky, 6-3, 5-7, 64, on Rod Laver Arena, delaying the start of the final match of the day.
Nadal will get another veteran next after U.S. Open semifinalist Gael Monfils beat Philipp Kohlschreiber, 6-3, 7-6 (1), 6-4.