MELBOURNE-Top seed Iga Swiatek was bundled out of the Australian Open fourth round on Sunday, with title threat Coco Gauff also exiting in tears, as a pair of underestimated Grand Slam champions tore open the women’s draw.
Third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas avoided a similar fate on the men’s side later in the day, raising his level when needed to claim a thrilling 6-4 6-4 3-6 4-6 6-3 win over Italian Jannik Sinner and keep his dreams of a maiden Grand Slam title alive. World No 1 Swiatek was sent packing by Elena Rybakina in the early match, the Pole falling 6-4 6-4 to the Kazak Wimbledon winner who started her tournament in the Melbourne Park wilderness of Court 13. Rybakina shrugged off the scheduling snub before the fourth round showdown but used it as fuel in her first appearance on centre court as a tightly wound Swiatek slowly unravelled.
The result means this year’s Australian Open will be the first Grand Slam tournament in the open era where the top two seeds in both the men’s and women’s singles draws have lost prior to the quarter-finals. Rybakina, the 22nd seed, might have expected to face Gauff in the quarter-finals but the much-hyped American teenager was upset 7-5 6-3 by Jelena Ostapenko.
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The 2017 French Open champion thrashed 30 winners past Gauff on Margaret Court Arena, her last two sealing the match in style to leave the 18-year-old in tears at her post-match media conference. The win secured a first Australian Open quarter-final for hard-hitting Ostapenko, as well as the first at a Grand Slam since her run to the Wimbledon semi-finals in 2018.
At a tournament fast running out of star power, unheralded Czech Jiri Lehecka landed another blow for the lesser lights as he toppled Canadian sixth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-6 6-3 7-6(2) 7-6(3) in the men’s tournament. The 21-year-old next plays Tsitsipas, seeking revenge for a loss to the Greek in the Rotterdam semi-finals last year.
While Lehecka was a bolt from the blue, big things have been expected of Sebastian Korda for some time and the young American is finally delivering on expectations at Melbourne Park. He took another step towards emulating his Australian Open-winning father Petr by booking his first Grand Slam quarter-final with a see-sawing 3-6 6-3 6-2 1-6 7-6 (10-7) win over Hubert Hurkacz at Rod Laver Arena.
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Korda showed impressive composure as Polish 10th seed Hurkacz roared back to level the fifth set tiebreak at 7-7 by winning four consecutive points. Korda set up a clash with Russian 18th seed Karen Khachanov, who had a much easier passage, hammering Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 6-0 6-0 7-6(4). American Jessica Pegula reached her third consecutive quarter-final at Melbourne Park by beating Czech 20th seed Barbora Krejcikova 7-5 6-2. She will face Victoria Azarenka or China’s Zhu Lin for a place in the semi-finals.