MELBOURNE: Third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas made short work of Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor, winning 6-2 7-6(5) 6-3 to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open on Friday, shortly after organisers defended their schedule after the previous day’s late finish.
Playing in glorious sunshine after two days marked by wild swings in the weather, the highest-seeded man in the draw after the premature exits of holder Rafa Nadal and Casper Ruud played near-flawless tennis to the delight of Greek fans in the Rod Laver Arena.
“Fair crack of the whip mate, I mean, it was great,” Tsitsipas said, slipping into the local vernacular. “I think my placement on the serve was exceptional today, I didn’t have a lot of rallies on my serve, which helped a lot.
“Kind of kept things clean and I enjoyed the weather today, what a lovely day for tennis it is today, isn’t it?” Tsitsipas has not dropped a set in the tournament as he chases a maiden Grand Slam. But the 2021 French Open runner-up came close midway through the match, saving a set point in the second set before doubling his advantage following a tiebreak.
Roared on by Greek fans, many of them from Melbourne, which has the largest population of Greek speakers outside Greece and Cyprus, Tsitsipas eased through the next set without any drama to set up a clash with 21-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner.
Sinner was made to work hard after a poor start to his match against Marton Fucsovics, dropping his serve twice and committing 18 unforced errors to lose the opening set, before eventually outlasting Fucsovics 4-6 4-6 6-1 6-2 6-0.
A neat passing shot at the net after powerful exchanges from the baseline helped Fucsovics break for a 2-1 lead in the second set and the world number 78 heaped more pressure on his opponent by going two sets up before Sinner switched gears.
The 15th seed, who has reached the quarter-finals of all four Grand Slams but has never gone any further, dropped only three games in the next three sets playing superior tennis against a fading Fucsovics.
Victory sparked huge cheers for the youngster on Margaret Court Arena, which had witnessed an epic comeback from Andy Murray hours earlier.
The former world number one was not happy to end his match at 4.05 a.m. (1705 GMT on Thursday), describing the late finish as a “joke” and “disrespectful”.
Tournament director Craig Tiley ruled out any immediate changes after Murray said tennis must aim to avoid late finishes having completed a remarkable 4-6 6-7(4) 7-6(5) 6-3 7-5 win over Thanasi Kokkinakis.
“At this point there’s no need to change the schedule,” Tiley, who has had to negotiate delays caused by heat and rain, told the “Today Show” on Channel Nine. “We’ll always look at it, when we do the debrief – like we do every year. “But at this point, at what it is, we’ve got to fit those matches in the 14 days, so you don’t have many options.”
Former French Open winner Barbora Krejcikova, a quarter-finalist at Melbourne Park in 2022, also went safely through with a 6-2 6-3 win over Anhelina Kalinina to remain on course for a possible meeting with American third seed Jessica Pegula.
Second seed Jabeur knocked out of Australian Open
Americans Sebastian Korda, Frances Tiafoe and Mackenzie McDonald are all in action later in the day. No male US player has captured a Grand Slam title since Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open, but the country’s hopes have been rekindled with eight players in the third round.
Two all-American matches are scheduled for Saturday, meaning that a total of six American men can advance, which would be the highest number to reach the last 16 at the Australian Open since 1995.
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