A couple of hours of rain delayed the start of play on Wednesday, Day 4 at the Australian Open, which then saw 3 talented 16-year olds in action, one of which, Mirra Andreeva, upset 6th-seeded Ons Jabeur, and another teenager, Coco Gauff, survived a stiff first-set challenge for Caroline Dolehide.
I’m really a bit speechless now,. It was an honour for me to play here against Caroline [Wozniacki] today. Honestly I was going [into] the match without any expectations, just to show what I’m capable of and see how the match goes, and it was really great. I enjoyed every second of it. Maria Timofeeva
Former champion Caroline Wozniacki and Leylah Fernandez, the No 32, were the only early casualties, but Barbora Krejcikova and Beatriz Haddad Maia, seeded 9 and 10, marched on.
Andreeva, the runner-up in the junior finals a year ago, which left her in tears, claimed her first Top 10 victory in emphatic fashion on Rod Laver Arena under the closed roof, dismantling the former World No 2 in just 54 minutes.
The fearless Russian shocked the Tunisian, 6-0 6-2, to reach the 3rd-round at Melbourne Park for the first time in her fledgling career.
A year ago, Andreeva went on a 16-match winning streak on the pro tour that took her into the 4th-round of the Mutua Madrid Open at the tender age of 15, and she continued to impress throughout the spring, pushing Gauff to 3 sets at Roland Garros and reaching the second week of Wimbledon.
First thing on Laver, she played with mature authority against Jabeur, a 3-time Grand Slam finalist who was utterly out of sorts and failed to win any of the first 6 games.
Despite Jabeur beginning with a big ace down the middle, she quickly found herself on the back foot as her 16-year-old opponent capitalised on some uncharacteristic errors to cruise through the opening set in just 20 minutes, conceding only 8 points.
In her 4th Grand Slam main draw appearance since making her debut at last year’s French Open, Andreeva showed maturity beyond her years as Jabeur desperately sought answers from her coaching team after the early jolt.
Dubbed Tunisia’s ‘Minister of Happiness’, Jabeur swapped her trademark smile for a more determined look, and an audacious forehand winner allowed the 29-year-old to hold early in the second set, but there was no stopping Andreeva, who raised her level again before pulling away.
Serving for the match, the Russian put down some strong deliveries that Jabeur wildly missed, putting Andreeva over the finish line in under an hour, and leaving Jabeur’s bid to become the first Arab and African woman to win a Grand Slam title in tatters.
“I’m really inspired by Ons,” Andreeva said on court afterwards. “Before I started to play on the WTA Tour, I always watched her matches. Now I had a chance to play her and, in the first set, I showed some amazing tennis. I didn’t expect that from myself.
“I’m a bit more mature than I was before. Last year I was 15, this year I’ve changed a lot and, I think, you can see that on the court.”
Jabeur, who opted to skip this month’s warm-up events recovering from injury, was far from her best throughout the match, and committed 24 unforced errors.
Andreeva takes on France’s Diane Parry next, who was a 7-5 6-2 winner over Kamilla Rakhimova, another Russian, after an hour and 43 minutes out on Court 13.
World No 4 Coco Gauff scraped through a tight first set before cruising past Caroline Dolehide into round 3 at Melbourne Park
© Julian Finney/Getty Images
Gauff, the World No 4, battled through a difficult opening set and overcame issues with her first serve to beat fellow American Dolehide, 7-6(2) 6-2, in an hour and 44 minutes on Margaret Court Arena, improving her perfect start for the season to 7-0, during which she has lost just one set.
She faces another American next, 82nd-ranked Alycia Parks, who added to the early upsets on Day 4, defeating Fernandez, 7-5 6-4, to make the 3rd-round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career.
Gauff lost just 3 games to Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in her Melbourne opener, but Dolehide’s heavy forehand proved a tougher nut to crack for the reigning US Open champion.
She looked in firm control over the first 5 games of the match, opening up a 4-1 lead as 25-year old Dolehide struggled to find her range, but the latter soon raised her game, and began to break down Gauff’s forehand wing to storm back, and served for the first set at 6-5.
A double-fault plus a pair of unforced errors from the baseline did not help her cause and allowed Gauff to break back and force matters into the tiebreak, where the younger American struck winner after winner to earn a 5-1 lead, and then closed out the 54-minute set when Dolehide’s backhand missed.
With a set in hand, Gauff looked to open up more opportunities at the net in the second as she broke for a 4-2 lead after Dolehide failed on a forehand pass, and then came through the longest game of the match to close out the win, improving her record to 2-0 over her compatriot.
Gauff finished the match with 20 winners to 26 unforced errors, while Dolehide struck 17 winners to her 41 miscues.
Alycia Parks upset Leylah Fernandez, the No 32 seed, to set up a meeting with compatriot Coco Gauff in round 3
© Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images
In the first meeting between Parks and Fernandez, the American battled through 2 close sets to knock out the 2021 US Open finalist in an hour and 43 minutes, setting up her first tour-level showdown with Gauff.
Parks was down a late break at 5-2 in the first set, but she went on a 5-game winning spree from there to eke out the one-set lead.
The left-handed Canadian then fell behind early in the second, dropping serve at 1-1 with a double-fault.
That proved to be the only chance Parks needed, and the powerful American charged through the rest of the match without facing any more break points.
Parks finished the match with 30 winners to Fernandez’s 9, and 13 of those winners were aces fired from the American racket.
Czech 9th seed Krejcikova also secured a straight sets win, later striking 30 winners and 8 aces to ease past Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch, 6-2 6-2, in an hour 23 minutes outdoors on Court 3.
Maria Timofeeva (L) came from a set down to upset former AO champion Caroline Wozniacki on Wednesday
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Meanwhile, under the roof of John Cain Arena, Russian qualifier Maria Timofeeva fought back from a set down to end the run of former World No 1 and 2018 Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki, 1-6 6-4 6-1.
“I’m really a bit speechless now,” Timofeeva said on court, after her win. “It was an honour for me to play here against Caroline today.
“Honestly I was going [into] the match without any expectations, just to show what I’m capable of and see how the match goes, and it was really great. I enjoyed every second of it.”
The World No 170 stormed back from the loss of the opener, as well as being early breaks down in both the second and third sets, and completed her upset win over wild-carded Wozniacki in 2 hours and 21 minutes.
The contrast in Grand Slam experience between the 20-year-old and the 33-year-old Dane is wide, with Timofeeva competing in her first Grand Slam main draw, while Wozniacki was playing in the 53rd Major of her career, and her second since she returned from maternity leave last summer.
Timofeeva, though, had already made strides as a player to watch last year, when she won the Hologic WTA Tour singles title in Budapest as a lucky loser, in her tour-level main-draw debut.
After successfully qualifying for a Major for the first time this week, Timofeeva notched her first career Grand Slam main-draw win over former quarter-finalist Alizé Cornet from France in Sunday’s opening round.
Now she added another big win to her Grand Slam debut fortnight, reaching the 3rd-round for the first time.
Against Wozniacki, a 30-time titlist on the Hologic WTA Tour, Timofeeva initially struggled as Wozniacki’s wealth of experience opened a 6-1, 2-0 lead for the Dane.
Timofeeva regrouped, though, cracking more winners as she got to level footing in the second set, and although she fired a winning forehand to break for 5-3, she did not serve out the set, and needed heavy returns to break Wozniacki in the next game to tie up the clash.
She dropped serve in the opening game of the decider, but went on a tear after that, racking up 6 games in succession to complete another notable victory, dominating in the third with 15 winners to Wozniacki’s 3.
Timofeeva will try to keep her breakthrough run going when she faces No 10 seed Haddad Maia in the 3rd-round, after the Brazilian eased through her encounter with another young qualifier, 16-year-old Alina Korneeva from Russia, 6-1 6-2.
Haddad Maia took an hour and 20 minutes to beat Korneeva, who won last year’s Junior Australian Open singles title over Andreeva, reaching the 3rd-round in Melbourne for the first time in her 5 appearances in the main draw Down Under.
The Brazilian had never advanced beyond the 2nd-round of a major before she blasted into the semi-finals of last year’s Roland Garros.
Moreover, Haddad Maia’s showing is now the best women’s singles result for a Brazilian player at the Australian Open in the Open Era, since 1968, with Claudia Monteiro also having reached the 2nd-round here in 1982 and 1983, while Brazilian legend Maria Esther Bueno was a finalist at this event in 1965, before the Open Era began.
A delighted Storm Hunter celebrates her win over Laura Siegemund in front of a happy home crowd on Wednesday in Melbourne
© William West/AFP via Getty Images
Stepping hot-foot onto Cain Arena, Storm Hunter’s unlikely singles renaissance continued when she dispatched her doubles nemesis, Laura Siegemund from Germany, to surge into the AO 3rd-round for the first time.
After a decade of toil, Hunter finally claimed her maiden Open singles victory on Monday, and backed that up with a hard-fought 6-4 3-6 6-3 win over the German veteran.
Hunter ended 2023 as the World’s No 1 doubles player, with Siegemund one of the few to recently get the better of the Australian with wins at the season-ending WTA Finals in Mexico and the United Cup semis earlier this month in Sydney.
The German’s singles ranking of 78 is also more than 100 spots better than Hunter’s, but that disparity counted for nothing on Wednesday in front of a partisan crowd on John Cain Arena.
“Laura’s an amazing competitor,” said the 29-year-old Australian. “I knew she wouldn’t go away and I was going to have to play my game and earn it. She wasn’t going to give me any freebies.”
The first set was an unusual affair, with the first 7 games all involving breaks of serve, until Hunter finally snapped the sequence in the 8th game, only for Siegemund to also hold for the first time.
The Aussie held her nerve from 0-30 down in the 10th game, reeling off 4 straight points to take the opener, but Siegemund struck back hard in the second, coming back from an early break down to force the contest into a decider.
Hunter grabbed the crucial final break in the 8th game and successfully served out the match in 2 hours and 21 minutes.
“Being in the third round is a dream come true,” she said in her post-match court-side interview. “I’ve obviously watched so many players do it, Australian players like Ash [Barty] and Dasha [Daria Saville].
“They’re really good friends of mine, and to be able to do that in front of you guys is amazing and in front of my team and my parents.”
Hunter’s third-round opponent will be Seigemund’s regular doubles partner Krejcikova.
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