If second seed Roger Federer is feeling any pressure to defend his 2017 Australian Open title this fortnight, he certainly is not showing it. The Swiss right-hander won in straight sets for the third match in a row on Saturday evening, ousting No. 29 seed Richard Gasquet 6-2, 7-5, 6-4. “My head’s still spinning from the match point where I got so lucky so I’m just trying to get over that one,” Federer said with a laugh on court after the match. “I think I was able to maybe stay a little bit more on the offensive than he was and maybe I was protecting my own serve a little bit better than him, I don’t know. But the second...
Six-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic is finding his form, breaking serve five times to advance to the second week at Melbourne Park for the 11th time with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 victory over No. 21 seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas on Saturday. “I knew coming into the match that Albert is a great fighter. He grinds, he gets a lot of balls back,” Djokovic said on court after the match. "Obviously for me it’s taking one match at a time. I have some incredible memories in Melbourne Park in the last decade of my career and obviously that comes back every time I land in Melbourne and I play on these courts.” Djokovic is continuing his pursuit of a record seventh...
Hyeon Chung became the first South Korean man of all-time to reach the Australian Open fourth round after coming from behind to beat World No. 4 Alexander Zverev 5-7, 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 on Saturday. "I'm just so happy to make the fourth round in [a Grand] Slam with so many good players," Chung said. "I don't want to stop here. [I want to] keep going." Chung, who now owns a 2-0 lead in his FedEx ATP Head2Head series with Zverev, recorded his first Top 5 win in the three-hour, 22-minute contest with the help of 19 winners to his opponent's nine in the final two sets. The reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champion will face Novak Djokovic for a...
Dominic Thiem recovered well from his second-round five-set battle at the Australian Open to beat Adrian Mannarino 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday. Becoming just the second Austrian man in the Open Era to reach the Australian Open fourth round on multiple occasions (Muster), Thiem broke his opponent on six occasions in two hours and eight minutes. The Austrian now leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 7-0. The World No. 5 will next meet Tennys Sandgren who backed up his great win over 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka to come from a set down to beat fellow Australian Open debutant Maximilian Marterer 5-7, 6-3, 7-5, 7-6(5). [ALSO LIKE] After failing to consolidate his first break of serve in the fourth game of...
It’s been 24 years since he made his Australian Open debut, yet India’s Leander Paes has shown no signs of slowing down. The 44-year-old Paes teamed up with 32-year-old countryman Purav Raja for a hard-fought second-round win over 2016 champions Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares on Saturday in Melbourne, edging the fifth seeds 7-6(3), 5-7, 7-6(6) after two hours and 54 minutes. Paes and Raja saved a match point at 5/6 in the decisive tie-break. Paes and Raja’s best results since joining forces ahead of the US Open have come on the ATP Challenger Tour, with a pair of titles last November in the United States. They will look to continue their run in Melbourne when they next face 11th-seeded...
