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De Minaur breaks and holds: De Minaur 6-4, 6-1, 2-0 Bublik* (*next server)
The stats are pretty messy for Bublik. He’s hit 29 unforced errors to De Minaur’s 10 and hasn’t been able to create any break points. And the scoreline gets even messier as De Minaur breaks to love before another hold without any jeopardy.
De Minaur wins the second set 6-1
At 4-1, Bublik reverts to type, surrendering the double break with a double fault and going all sweary at the changeover. He’s unhappy with himself, his team, the balls and the court, which plays slower in the evening session, something he’s not as used to as De Minaur. It leaves the Australian serving for the set, and he closes it out to 30 when Bublik biffs his return into the net. It’s a long way back from here, while for De Minaur he’s a set away from his second successive Australian Open quarter-final.
Up next for Tien: Alexander Zverev. “It’s so special,” says a beaming Tien. “I’m just super happy. It’s going to be super tough [against Zverev]. The first time we played I won but last time he beat me pretty bad [at last year’s French Open]. It’s going to be a challenge but I’m looking forward to it.”
Tien takes out Medvedev 6-4, 6-0, 6-3
Tien halts Medvedev’s mini-revival, holding serve to edge to 5-3. And Medvedev promptly crashes to 0-40! Tien can’t take the first match point … Medvedev smashes on the second … and Tien doesn’t only get the ball back but whacks it away for a winner! The 20-year-old Tien is into a grand slam quarter-final for the first time. He’s the youngest player to reach the last eight since 2015 and the youngest American to get this far at a slam since 2002. Anything Iva Jovic can do … it’s been some day for US prodigies.
Second set: De Minaur* 6-4, 3-1 Bublik (*next server)
De Minaur, showing tremendous foot speed, as he always does, has a point for the double break at 30-40. It’s saved with an ace by Bublik. And the Kazakhstani goes on to hold. But he’s won only seven points on De Minaur’s serve this evening, and he’s got to improve the stat if he’s to cause De Minaur any significant problems.
Medvedev breaks and holds: Medvedev 4-6, 0-6, 3-4 Tien* (*next server)
Medvedev has a game on the board! Make that two, when he breaks to 30, and then three, as he holds to love. Is Tien tightening? This could yet get interesting.
De Minaur breaks: De Minaur* 6-4, 2-0 Bublik (*next server)
Medvedev has capitulated since losing that first set – and it’ll be interesting to see how Bublik responds having been denied in the opener. In the past he had a tendency to self combust in matches, amid a flurry of smashed rackets and screaming, but he’s been much more mentally strong since coming from two sets down to defeat De Minaur in five sets at the French Open last year. That win really kickstarted a transformation … but there are too many errors from Bublik right now, and another hands De Minaur the break to 30.
Tien breaks then holds … again: Medvedev* 4-6, 0-6, 0-4 Tien (*next server)
Tien takes his 10th game on the spin for 3-0 and his 11th for 4-0, with Medvedev’s mind seemingly already halfway home in Monte Carlo.
De Minaur wins the first set 6-4
Back to Rod Laver, where Bublik and De Minaur are still on serve, with De Minaur leading 5-4. And the Demon gives himself a sniff at 15-30 … which becomes 15-40 when he goes back behind Bublik with a forehand winner! Smart play. And it gives him two set points, which are also the first break points of this match. Bublik bashes down his fastest serve of the night on the first … and coughs up a double on the second! The 15,000-strong crowd cheer the double fault as loudly as they would a winner, because their man is a set ahead.
Tien breaks then holds: Medvedev 4-6, 0-6, 0-2 Tien* (*next server)
Medvedev lost his serve at the start of the first and second sets, and it’s the same sorry story here, when he double faults at 30-40 to give Tien another head start. Will Tien tighten with the finish line in sight? The 20-year-old hasn’t reached a slam quarter-final before. That may be Medvedev’s best hope at this stage, but Tien is unwavering as he backs up the break by holding to 15.
Tien takes second set to lead Medvedev 6-4, 6-0
A hold apiece from Bublik and De Minaur, followed by a hold to 30 for Bublik. Not that I’m fully focusing, because I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how Medvedev has slumped 5-0 down in the second set against Tien, who now has two set points at 40-15. Medvedev did seem to be a man transformed in Melbourne, with his new team, new tactics and new title in the Brisbane warm-up event, but he’s on the wrong end of a second-set bagel as Tien tonks a backhand winner down the line! Which is reminding me how hungry I am having not yet had any breakfast.
Zverev beats Cerundolo 6-2, 6-4, 6-4
A routine victory for the third seed. He races to 40-0 … before netting a forehand on the first match point and succeeding with a drop shot backed up by a lob on the second! Zverev awaits the winner of Medvedev v Tien, with Tien trouncing the 11th seed in the second set, leading 6-4, 4-0. “I’m trying to do what the two best players are doing, to add to my game,” says Zverev, three times a grand slam runner-up, never a champion, when asked of his hopes of finally breaking the Sinner-Alcaraz slam supremacy.
First set: De Minaur 2-1 Bublik* (*next server)
If you haven’t seen Bublik play before, expect underarm serves, tweeners, countless drop shots and outlandish winners. He’s one of tennis’s unorthodox entertainers. A bit of a Nick Kyrgios, but with a new-found will to win. Bublik pulls off a drop shot/lob combo for 0-15 on De Minaur’s serve, but De Minaur moves to 30-15 and then 40-30, and he secures the game with an ace.
First set: De Minaur* 1-1 Bublik (*next server)
De Minaur is playing in the fourth round for the fifth consecutive year – a feat that not even Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis and Pat Rafter achieved at their home slam – but he’s never been past the quarter-finals. Which largely sums up his career: he’s so consistent in beating the players he’s expected to, but is underpowered against the very best. De Minaur does send a bullet of a backhand winner down the line to get to deuce on Bublik’s serve, though. But two errors then give the Kazakhstani the game.
First set: De Minaur 1-0 Bublik* (*next server)
De Minaur warmed up for this match by hitting with Cruz Hewitt, the 17-year-old son of his mentor Lleyton. Bublik claims the first victory as he wins the coin toss and elects to receive – but De Minaur opens confidently with an ace on the first point and a hold to 15.
Tien has a set point on the Margaret Court Arena at 5-4, 40-30. The young left-hander has had some medical treatment in this opening set but he looks untroubled and a fizzing forehand down the line secures him the opener! He leads the 2021, 2022 and 2024 finalist 6-4.
De Minaur makes his entrance on Rod Laver. Unsurprisingly the home hope is shown a lot of love.
As we wait for De Minaur and Bublik to arrive, Zverev is zooming towards victory. Last year’s runner-up leads Argentina’s Cerundolo 6-2, 6-4, 2-3, while Medvedev is serving to stay in the first set, 5-3 down to the 20-year-old American Learner Tien.
Meanwhile our man in Melbourne, Tumaini Carayol, has this report on Alcaraz’s win:
Carlos Alcaraz continued to build momentum in his pursuit of the career grand slam as he navigated a slow start and pushed through his first test at the Australian Open to reach the quarter-finals with a 7-6 (6), 6-4, 7-5 win over the 19th seed Tommy Paul.
Alcaraz, the world No 1, has now reached the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park for three consecutive years and this is his first time doing so without dropping a set.
Having already won each of the three other grand slam tournaments twice, he will be attempting to break new ground by reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open for the first time in his career.
Things were far from easy for Alcaraz, who has played many tough matches with Paul over the past four years, losing to the American twice in their seven meetings.
Alcaraz trailed by a break early in the first set and still could not separate himself from an impressive Paul, who served well, put pressure on the American by taking the ball early and frustrated the Spaniard with his excellent defensive skills.
You can read the rest here:
Sabalenka is on some streak in Melbourne, winning 49 of her past 54 sets, the kind of stat that puts her alongside the likes of Graf, Seles, Hingis and Serena in the Australian Open history books. How the world No 1 deals with the precocious talents of the 18-year-old Jovic in the last eight will be fascinating. It’ll be Jovic’s first grand slam quarter-final. The Californian has Serbian heritage, and Novak Djokovic believes she “has all the tools” to become “a future champion and a future No 1”.
Already today, in mercifully less extreme heat for the players, there have been wins for the two No 1s, with Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka again rolling on in straight sets. Sabalenka ended the breakthrough run of the 19-year-old Victoria Mboko, 6-1, 7-6, and will now face in the quarter-finals another stupendously talented teen in Iva Jovic, who backed up her win over Jasmine Paolini by routing Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, 6-0, 6-1. And the former teen phenom Coco Gauff (how is she still only 21?! It feels as if she’s been around for 10 years) came through in three sets, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, against the classy Czech Karolina Muchova.
Preamble
G’day and welcome to the Australian Open – night session day eight! The brilliance of the first week at a grand slam is the head-spinning amount of action on offer all at once; the beauty of the second week is the focus sharpens considerably on individual matches, so this night session brings us two contests to get immersed in: Alex de Minaur v Alexander Bublik followed by Mirra Andreeva v Elina Svitolina … though Daniil Medvedev v Learner Tien has spilled over from the day session and Alexander Zverev is two sets up, 6-2, 6-4, against Francisco Cerundolo.
De Minaur, who’s in the familiar territory of being the last remaining Australian in the men’s singles, is coming up against a changed man in Bublik. De Minaur’s record against the underarm-serving Kazakhstani maverick – who once said he hated tennis “with all my heart” – read 3-0 until Bublik had a dramatic mind shift last year at the age of 27 (after a road trip to Vegas – you couldn’t make it up) and decided he no longer wanted to waste his talent.
Bublik is now in the form of his life, up to world No 10, with two wins over De Minaur and five titles during the past eight months, including in Hong Kong two weeks ago. And he hasn’t dropped a set on his way to reaching the fourth round for the first time – a stage De Minaur is playing in for the fifth straight year.
“I enjoy winning more than in previous years,” Bublik said a few days ago. “I matured and I’m treating it more like work. I came here to do things, to win matches, to do everything in my power. I have no joy of taking the third set, losing in five, yelling, breaking racquets. I don’t feel the need to do that. So I’m trying to fight.”
Fighting is something De Minaur has done his entire career, making up for his modest firepower with his relentless speed and scrapping – a description that’s also very apt for Svitolina, another full-of-heart player who hasn’t been able to make that jump to slam champion. It’s a step many believe is destined for the 18-year-old prodigy that is Andreeva, but don’t count Svitolina out today; she’s started the season just as strongly as Andreeva and, at 31, will know this is an opportunity she must do all she can to grasp.
De Minaur and Bublik will be on court at: about 7pm Melbourne time/8am GMT.
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