Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Australia slamming success for U.S. men
Quartet in 4th round for 1st time since ’04
MELBOURNE, Australia — It’s been almost two decades since this many U.S. men reached Week 2 at the Australian Open.
And while that group in 2004 included a couple of major champions in Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick, everything is all so new for the quartet there this time: Tommy Paul, who is 25; J.J. Wolf, 24; Sebastian Korda, 22; and Ben Shelton, 20, are about to make their fourth-round debuts at Melbourne Park.
It must feel like a chance for a career-defining result for them and other young men still in the bracket.
“I haven’t thought about it too much, honestly, because I just have that onematch-at-a-time mentality, but I think it’s hard for anyone to look past that. There’s been a lot of upsets,” the 67thranked Wolf, who played college tennis at Ohio State, said after eliminating lucky loser Michael Mmoh 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 in an all-american matchup Saturday. “But upsets happen for a reason. A lot of people out here are good. It is a real opportunity.”
Wolf next plays yet another American, 89th-ranked Shelton, who won the NCAA title for the University of Florida as a sophomore last year and then turned pro. Using his passport to travel outside of the United States for the first time, Shelton extended his stay in his Australian Open debut by defeating 113th-ranked Australian wild-card entry Alexei Popyrin 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-4.
Paul, who is ranked 35th, topped Californian Jenson Brooksby 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. Next for Paul will be 14th-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut, who ended the exhausting run of Andy Murray by beating the threetime major champion 6-1, 6-7 (7), 6-3, 6-4.
That result left Novak Djokovic as the only player among the 16 remaining men who has won a major title. Not only that, but the other 15 have participated in a combined total of one major final — No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas lost to Djokovic in the 2021 French Open final.
That No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev, a 25-year-old from Russia, and No. 9 seed Holger Rune, a 19-year-old from Denmark, would still be in the bracket, and are set up to face each other for a quarterfinal berth Monday, should come as no surprise.
Still, neither has been past the final eight at any major tournament. Nor has No. 22 Alex de Minaur, a 23-year-old from Australia, who advanced Saturday and gets the unenviable task of meeting 21time major champion Djokovic. Nine of those titles came at Melbourne Park, and Djokovic has won 24 consecutive matches there after topping No. 27 Grigor Dimitrov 7-6 (7), 6-3, 6-4.
No. 1 women’s seed, Gauff ousted
Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina eliminated No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek in straight sets Sunday (late Saturday Pacific time) to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals for the first time.
The 22nd-seeded Rybakina used her big serving to unsettle Swiatek and got the better of their baseline exchanges to win 6-4, 6-4.
Also, No. 17 Jelena Ostapenko eliminated No. 7-seeded American Coco Gauff 7-5, 6-3.