World No. 1 Rafael Nadal continued his quest for a 17th Grand Slam championship with an often hard-fought second-round victory over Leonardo Mayer on Wednesday evening at the Australian Open. At times, Nadal, the 2009 champion, was left frustrated by Mayer’s resilience, but ultimately the Spanish superstar extended his perfect FedEx ATP Head2Head record to 5-0 against the Argentine with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(4) win in two hours and 38 minutes. “It was an important victory for me,” Nadal told Roger Rasheed in an on-court interview. “[Mayer is] always a tough opponent. I had to hit some great shots in the tie-break. I’m happy to be in the third round after a while without being in competition.” Nadal, who is...
Rare is the Grand Slam tournament in which Marin Cilic grabs the headlines and is the talk of the preamble. The Big Four and Stan Wawrinka do that too well most of the time. But equally as rare is the Grand Slam where Cilic is not a quiet contender who plays his way into title-contention form by the second week. The Croatian looks like he's on his way to such status again at the 2018 Australian Open. [ALSO LIKE] The sixth seed dismissed Portugal's Joao Sousa in straight sets on Wednesday 6-1, 7-5, 6-2 to advance to the third round in Melbourne for the seventh time. The 6'6” right-hander, who reached his second Grand Slam final last year at Wimbledon...
Listen to Rafael Nadal discuss his second-round victory against Leonardo Mayer of Argentina. Video courtesy Tennis Australia. Watch more video and live matches at www.ausopen.com.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga looked finished. The 15th seed was down 2-5 in the fifth set against Denis Shapovalov, and the #NextGenATP Canadian had all the momentum, having broken Tsonga in the second game of the final set. But from out of nowhere, Tsonga sprinted to life, coming back from 30/30, 2-5 to win the final five games of the match and advance to the third round of the Australian Open 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(4), 7-5. [ALSO LIKE] “I had to fight a lot and make him finish the match. He never did, so it's good for me,” Tsonga said. “But the most important for me, is to fight, give my best on court until the last point. That's what I did...
