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And so on, until the spiky end of the first grand slam of the year, with the second week of the Australian Open underway on another sunny day in Melbourne Park. It’s been quite a unique tournament so far, from the preparation that featured the hotel quarantine, the in-room training programs, and the complaining players, to the unusual sights and sounds from the robot linesmen, a here, a day, disappeared. next crowd, and now tubed crowd noise.
However, if you can ignore the absence of some big names, including the greatest of all Roger Federer, at this stage of the men’s draw, at least, there is something of a predictable feeling. Seven of the top 10 seeds remain at the time of this writing, and only Dominic Thiem (3), Diego Schwartzman (8) and Gael Monfils (10) have fallen to this point.
The identity of the eight quarter-finalists will be finalized today, when the bottom half of the draw takes place. Topping the rest of the day’s session is the second seed Rafael Nadal, for whom Fabio Fognini it is shaping up to be the last hurdle to overcome in his quest for a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title. We’ll give you play-by-play coverage of that once things get underway at Rod Laver Arena. The winner will meet Stefanos Tsitsipas, fifth seed, or Matteo berrettini, the ninth seed, for a place in the semifinals. Those two will meet late into the night at Rod Laver in the last game of the day.
Elsewhere, fourth seed Daniil Medvedev facilitated past Mackenzie mcdonald of the USA today, with the Russian winning in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, while another Russian, seventh seed Andrey Rublev, is underway and in the first set against Casper ruud of Norway in a battle of future stars at Margaret Court Arena.
In the women’s box, there is a more unknown touch for the remaining matches. Only four of the top 10 seeds remain – Ash barty (1), Simona Halep (2), Naomi Osaka (3) and Serena Williams (10). Barty leads today’s afternoon session as she continues her bid to become the first local woman to win the Australian Open singles title since Chris O’Neil 43 years ago. She plays american Shelby rogers first at Rod Laver, no earlier than 7pm local time.
Get in touch if you have anything you need to vent. I’m at [email protected], or @mike_hytner Twitter is your thing. Let’s move on.
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