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Melbourne (AFP) – Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina settled a confrontation between two former Grandslam champions against Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, and on Tuesday reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open for the first time in her career, and Karen Khachanov joined her after the withdrawal of American Sebastian Korda, after the Russian was leading by two sets and 3-0 in the third.
Rybakina, last year’s Wimbledon champion, outperformed Ostapenko, who won Roland Garros in 2017, 6-2, 6-4.
The Kazakh, ranked 25th in the world, will next meet American Jessica Pegula, the third, or Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, twice crowned, in Melbourne.
And Rybakina had already eliminated in the previous round the world number one, Polish Iga Schwyntek, who was the favorite to win the title.
“I am happy to be in the semi-finals. The atmosphere was great,” she said, after winning a match in which she displayed her power on serve, on Tuesday.
“Of course I was nervous, especially in the last half, to be honest. Not as nervous as I was before the game,” she added.
The confrontation stopped for about half an hour in order to close the roof because of the rain.
Khachanov put an end to Korda’s adventure by repeating his father’s achievement by defeating him 7-6 (7/5), 6-3, 3-0 before the latter withdrew due to a wrist injury.
Korda received treatment on his wrist in the second set of the match before he was forced to retire, dashing his dream of winning the Australian championship like Peter’s father in 1998.
This is the first time that Khachanov reaches the semi-finals of the Australian Open, equaling his best result in the major tournaments, when he reached the same round last year in the US Open, before falling to the Norwegian Casper Rudd.
As for Korda (31 in the world), he blew a surprise by eliminating Russian Daniel Medvedev, the runner-up of the previous two editions, in the third round and eliminating Polish Hubert Hurkacz, the eleventh in the world, in the final price in five sets, so that the 22-year-old reached the quarter-finals of a major tournament for the first time in his career.
“I think up to a certain point the match was very competitive and there was a good fight,” said the Russian world number 20 after his victory.
“He beat my friend Daniel in three sets and beat Hurkacz in five sets so he was playing great. Let’s applaud him.”
The Russian will meet in the last square with the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, fourth in the world, or the Czech Jiri Lehicka, who will meet later.
© 2023 AFP
