The women’s tournament in the lower part of the bracket returned to the tracks determined by seeding in the semifinals. This happened after a difficult three-set victory for Gauff (No. 4) over the Ukrainian Marta Kostiuk and a much easier match for Sabalenka (No. 2) against the Czech Barbora Krejcikova.
The American, the US Open champion, advanced to the Australian Open semi-finals for the first time, fighting her Ukrainian rival for over three hours. Already in the first set she experienced difficult moments when she lost 1:5, but she won the tie-break. In the second one, she didn’t take advantage of the chance to win, although she had the advantage of breaking her opponent’s pass, only in the last one she started strong and successfully achieved the final success.
Sabalenka dominated another tennis player in her own way, winning in two short sets against Barbora Krejcikova, who, although she is a Grand Slam champion from Paris, did not find a way to use the strength of the Belarusian’s serve and forehand, although she was ambitiously looking for it. The Gauff-Sabalenka semi-final promises to be great, in the current competition, defending champion Aryna loses to Coco 2-4.
Novak Djokovic won his 48th consecutive match at Melbourne Park. He started the match with Taylor Fritz briskly, but probably a little irritated by the fact that he was not using many balls that gave him an advantage in his opponent’s serve, he slowed down and quite laboriously built up the victory over the American. With some luck, Fritz even snatched the second set from the Serbian champion, only then did the ten-time Australian Open champion accelerate and gain full control over the events.
