Daniil Medvedev yesterday stayed on track for a third Australian Open final in four years, as Ukrainian qualifier Dayana Yastremska upset former champion Victoria Azarenka to surge into the quarter-finals.
Portugal’s Nuno Borges made the Russian third seed work hard before Medvedev won 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), 5-7, 6-1 after more than three hours on Rod Laver Arena.
The 27-year-old would meet Polish ninth seed Hubert Hurkacz for a place in the last four.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Before this match I was feeling 100 percent,” said Medvedev, defeated by Novak Djokovic in the 2021 final and by Rafael Nadal the following year. “But he made me run third set and that’s why I missed a little bit too much. I was pretty dead to be honest. In the fourth set I managed to raise my energy levels.”
Big-serving Hurkacz ended the dream run of French wildcard Arthur Cazaux 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 to advance to his first quarter-final at Melbourne Park.
Earlier, Yastremska fought off two set points in the first set and came from a break down in the second against two-time champion Azarenka to win 7-6 (8/6),6-4.
Her reward is a clash with unseeded Czech Linda Noskova, who went through when Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina retired with a bad back, while trailing 3-0 in the first set.
“I need to take a little bit of time to breathe because my heart I feel is going to jump out of my body,” said Yastremska, who hammered Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in the first round. “I always felt like I was running behind the train, but I think because I am a little bit of a fighter that’s why I won this match.”
The fearless Ukrainian said she hoped she had made her war-torn country proud by reaching a maiden Grand Slam quarter-final Monday, while admitting it was emotionally hard.
“I think they’re going to be really proud of me and I’m happy to make them be proud,” Yastremska said of Ukrainians back home.
Yastremska won three WTA Tour titles as a teenager, but the 23-year-old has struggled in the past few years, adding that the conflict had affected her game.
“The war, of course, it’s affected us a lot because you cannot go home like you wanted, when you wanted, like it was before. You always read the news. You always see the videos,” she said.
“As I said before, for example, when I was in Brisbane [this month], the rocket arrived on my grandmother’s house. It’s tough emotionally to play,” she added.
Noskova, 19, barely broke a sweat to progress after former world No. 3 Svitolina was unable to complete her match on Margaret Court Arena.
The 19th seed needed a medical timeout at 2-0 down in the first set, during which she received treatment for her lower back, and she pulled out after being broken for the second time on her return.
“I got a spasm, or I don’t know exactly what it is, but like shooting pain in the first game, the last two points,” Svitolina said. “Couldn’t do anything, completely locked my back.”
In women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and China’s Lin Zhu crashed out of the tournament in their round-of-16 match, losing 6-3, 7-5 to Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine and Jelana Ostapenko of Latvia.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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