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Chaos continued at Melbourne Park on Saturday.
You can see it especially in the top half of the women’s draw, where 12 of the 16 seeded players are out of the Australian Open. Heading to the airport on Saturday were No. 1 Iga Swiatek, No. 11 Jelena Ostapenko, and No. 27 Emma Navarro. Only one Grand Slam champion–two-time Aussie winner Victoria Azarenka–is left among the eight remaining players on that side of the bracket. In fact, no one else has even reached a slam final.
The result will undoubtedly be a hectic week two, when opportunities for everyone still alive.
“Hopes, no; mentality, not really,” Azarenka said when asked if her hopes and mentality moving forward in the event are impacted by the openness of the draw. “Every match is going to be a battle. There are no bad players in the fourth round of a Grand Slam. If they are here, that means they worked their butts off and they played well and they deserve to be here.
“I think right now the level of tennis is very, very competitive, and we have like a deep pool of players who can beat anybody on the given day. I think that’s what makes them more dangerous. The consistency sometimes can be on and off. You don’t know which player you’re going to get on which day.
“I think that they fully deserve to be where they are. There are no easy matches in the Grand Slam. So you have to start the tournaments right away from the first round. The evidence of seeded players kind of being out early is that the quality and the level of other players is really high.”
Three seeded men found that out the hard way on Saturday. No. 14 Tommy Paul fell to Miomir Kecmanovic in five sets, No. 11 Casper Ruud was upset by Cameron Norrie, No. 13 Grigor Dimitrov was shocked by Nuno Borges, and No. 28 Tallon Griekspoor got crushed by wild card Arthur Cazaux. The departure of No. 21 seed Ugo Humbert was more expected, as the Frenchman had to go up against Hubert Hurkacz.
Still, on the men’s side the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, and Alexander Zverev remain in the bottom half of the bracket. The chances of an expected finalist emerging are likely–if not even certain.
In the women’s draw, that certainly isn’t the case. Second-week chaos is coming.
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