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Opinion
A major hurdle in Ashleigh Barty’s path to the Australian Open final has been removed from her path after Sofia Kenin suffered the earliest defeat by a women’s defending champion in nearly two decades.
The fourth-seeded American became the biggest casualty of the women’s draw so far when she suffered a straight-sets defeat at the hands of Estonian veteran Kaia Kanepi, bowing out in just 64 minutes.
Kenin missed two chances to break in the opening game, and while she held her serve in the next game, consecutive errors saw her fall behind 1-3, which later became 1-4 after she wasted three break points in the fifth game.
Kanepi, who has never reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open but has done so at the other three majors twice each, took the opening set 6-3 and did not let up as she broke twice in the second set to complete a convincing 6-3, 6-2 victory.
The Estonian capped it off with her tenth ace on match point, the result sending her into the third round at Melbourne Park for only the third time (after 2009 and 2018).
Her reward is a third-round clash against Croatia’s Donna Vekic, who lost just four games in a straight-sets defeat of last year’s French Open semi-finalist Nadia Podoroska.
As for Sofia Kenin, her defeat is the earliest by a women’s defending champion at the Australian Open since another American, Jennifer Capriati, bombed out in the opening round of the 2003 tournament.
Kenin’s departure leaves fifth seed Elina Svitolina, who defeated American teenage sensation Coco Gauff on Thursday, as the second-highest seed remaining in the top half of the draw.
It also marked the fourth consecutive day that at least one former grand slam champion in the women’s draw was beaten, after Angelique Kerber (Day 1), Victoria Azarenka (Day 2), Bianca Andreescu, Venus Williams, Petra Kvitova (Day 3), Samantha Stosur, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Kenin (Day 4) fell earlier in the tournament.
Svitolina, a junior French Open champion in 2010, next faces 26th seed Yulia Putintseva in the third round and is now the biggest threat to Ashleigh Barty reaching the final at her national championships.
Barty, for her part, dropped her first service game against compatriot Daria Gavrilova but then won the next six games on the bounce to take the opening set in just under half an hour.
After falling behind 0-2 in the second, the Queenslander hit back with five straight games to put herself in a position to serve for the match at 5-2, but Gavrilova would not give in, breaking back twice to force a tiebreaker.
Gavrilova held two separate set points in the breaker but could not capitalise on either, and from 6-7 down Barty would win the final three points of the match to progress to a third-round clash against Russian 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.
Earlier, Swiss eleventh seed Belinda Bencic needed three sets to get past two-time former grand slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, while Karolina Pliskova had it easy against Danielle Collins, winning in straight sets despite being down 0-2 in the second.
In the men’s draw fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas needed five sets and over four and a half hours to see off the brave challenge of Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis and reach the third round.
The Greek star, who did not face a break point in his first-round win over Gilles Simon, dropped the first set in a tiebreak but, as to be expected from a player of his calibre, he was quick to hit back, taking the next two sets for the loss of five games.
The 22-year-old then reached match point in the tenth game of the fourth set, but Kokkinakis would not relent, holding in a six-deuce game and eventually forcing a tiebreak, which he claimed 7-5 to take the match to a fifth and deciding set.
A break in the fifth game proved to be enough for Tsitsipas to claim the final set 6-4 and edge closer to a possible quarter-final showdown against Rafael Nadal.
Elsewhere, Matteo Berrettini advanced to the third round after defeating Tomas Machac in four sets, while Andrey Rublev was a straight-sets winner over Thiago Monteiro.
Australian 21st seed Alex de Minaur defeated Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas in straight sets to set up a third-round clash against Italian veteran Fabio Fognini, who emerged through an epic five-setter against compatriot Salvatore Caruso, winning the final set tiebreak 14-12.
The winner of that match could then go on to face Rafael Nadal in the fourth round. If de Minaur gets this far, it will be the first time he has reached the last 16 at Melbourne Park.
Women’s seventh seed Aryna Sabalenka will kick off play on Rod Laver Arena this morning when she faces American Ann Li, with tenth seed Serena Williams to follow when she plays Russian Anastasia Potapova.
Should both Sabalenka and Williams win their respective matches, they will then face each other in the fourth round.
In the evening Simona Halep, who pulled herself out of trouble to defeat Australian Ajla Tomljanovic in the second round, is up against Veronika Kudermetova, while the men’s feature match pits top seed Novak Djokovic up against American Taylor Fritz.
Fans with a pass to Margaret Court Arena will see grand slam champions Garbine Muguruza and Iga Swiatek in action, while there are also matches between Marketa Vondrousova and Sorana Cirstea and an all-Canadian clash between Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime to look forward to.
On John Cain Arena, Venus Williams’s second-round conqueror, Sara Errani, is up against Chinese Taipei veteran Su-wei Hsieh, while we will also see our first clash of seeds in the women’s draw when Ons Jabeur faces 2019 champion Naomi Osaka.
The evening session will see Nick Kyrgios face Dominic Thiem in a match that is sure to generate fireworks, with the winner of that match to face whoever wins out of Grigor Dimitrov and Pablo Carreno Busta in the last sixteen.
Rod Laver Arena
Day session – play starts at 11:00am
Aryna Sabalenka [7] (BLR) vs Ann Li (USA)
Not before 1:00pm
Anastasia Potapova (RUS) vs Serena Williams [10] (USA)
Adrian Mannarino [32] (FRA) vs Alexander Zverev [6] (GER)
Evening session – play starts at 7:00pm
Veronika Kudermotova (RUS) vs Simona Halep [2] (ROU)
Novak Djokovic [1] (SRB) vs Taylor Fritz [27] (USA)
Margaret Court Arena
Day session – play starts at 11:00am
Marketa Vondrousova [19] (CZE) vs Sorana Cirstea (ROU)
Not before 12:30pm
Garbine Muguruza [14] (ESP) vs Zarina Diyas (KAZ)
Grigor Dimitrov [18] (BUL) vs Pablo Carreno Busta [15](ESP)
Night session – not before 7:00pm
Denis Shapovalov [11] (CAN) vs Felix Auger-Aliassime [20] (CAN)
Iga Swiatek [15] (POL) vs Fiona Ferro (FRA)
John Cain Arena
Play starts at 12:00pm
Su-wei Hsieh (TPE) vs Sara Errani (ITA)
Not before 1:30pm
Ons Jabeur [27] (TUN) vs Naomi Osaka [3] (JPN)
Not before 3:00pm
Aslan Karatsev (RUS) vs Diego Schwartzman [8] (ARG)
Not before 7:00pm
Dominic Thiem [3] (AUT) vs Nick Kyrgios (AUS)
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