Federer moves on to play fan favorite
Straight sets win sets up showdown against rising star, 20, from Greece
MELBOURNE, Australia — Roger Federer has played here 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 to Melbourne Parks for the season-opening major.
After beating 21-year-old American Taylor Fritz 6-2, 75, 6-2 on Friday in his 100th match at the Australian Open on center court, 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,” Federer said. “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 round at Wimbledon last year.
Big sections of Greeks sang songs 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 2½ 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 favorite Ash Barty became the first player through to the fourth round a 7-5, 6-1 win over Maria Sakkari.
Barty continued the socalled “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 Thursday’s late matches, Simona Halep, the top-seeded woman, got all she could handle from 20year-old American Sofia Kenin in the second round.
Halep took the last four games to emerge with a 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-4 victory.
“Well, I have no idea how I won this tonight,” said Halep, the reigning French Open champion. “It’s so tough to explain what happened on court.”
“Hopefully,” said Halep, whose No. 1 ranking is up for grabs, “next round I play better.”
That third-round matchup will be intriguing, because it’ll be against seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams. And the winner of that could face Williams’ younger sister, 23-time major champ Serena, in the fourth round.
Venus won a three-setter that finished a little before Halep’s did — and in much more emphatic fashion. Pushed to that deciding set by getting broken to end the second, Venus ran away with the win down the stretch, defeating Alize Cornet 6-3, 4-6, 6-0.
Serena advanced to the third round by beating 2014 Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard 6-2, 6-2, reeling off the last five games and 16 of the final 20 points. That match was followed in Rod Laver Arena by No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a rematch of the 2008 final.