Towards Nadal and sensations from France: Khachanov and Karatsev made it to the third round of the Australian Open almost without any problems

Karatsev's progress and Khachanov's dominance

Leading Russian tennis players continue to move confidently through the Australian Open tournament grid.

Karen Khachanov and Aslan Karatsev were the first to work their way into the third round of singles.

But if the first from beginning to end controlled the course of the meeting with Benjamin Bonzi, then the second was again forced to overcome himself and recoup.

At first, one could get the impression that the confrontation with Mackenzie MacDonald would be no less tense than with Jaume Munyar.

Karatsev, albeit in a bitter struggle, lost the first three games, after which he did not find the strength to earn at least one break point on the opponent's serve.

In many ways, the reason for this was 12 unforced errors - only two less than in the duel with the Spaniard.

As a result, he lost the starting set with a score of 3:6 and made his fans nervous again.

However, after returning to the court, Karatsev appeared in a completely different light. He played an almost perfect game: there were almost three times more actively won balls than misses (13:5), and the first serve became an insoluble problem for McDonald. As a result, Aslan did not allow his counterpart to dream of a break point even once, while he himself earned four. It was possible to realize only two, but this was more than enough.

McDonald, unlike the Russian, started a new set worse than ever: he added three more games to the two lost games at the end of the second installment. And although Aslan himself began to make mistakes much more often, this did not help the American. Of the remaining 14 games, he managed to retain only five and was forced to admit defeat - 6:3, 2:6, 2:6, 3:6. Karatsev now has to fight with Adrian Mannarino. He became the author of one of the loudest sensations of the day, having dealt with the 11th racket of the world, Hubert Hurkacz. In 2017, the Frenchman last beat the ATP top 20 at the Grand Slam tournament, after which he suffered 12 defeats in a row.

Khachanov spent half an hour less than his compatriot on the court, without experiencing serious problems in the match with Benjamin Bonzi. He did not immediately get involved in the game and frustrated blows too often in the opening, making as many as 18 unforced errors in the first game, but the Frenchman could not take advantage of the chances given to him. He gave the set 4-6 and was so upset that he could not take a game in the next. At the same time, he looked especially helpless at the reception, completing only 25% of the draws in his favor.

Despite this, Bonzi managed to pull himself together and finally gave the fight to Khachanov, but it did not work out to bring the matter to a tie-break.

With a score of 5:6, the Frenchman failed to complete the rallies with accurate blows three times in a row and thus put an end to his own prospects for the first time in his career to overcome the second-round barrier in the majors.

Karen also made it to the third round for the fourth time in a row, repeating his best result at the Australian Open.

However, it will be very difficult to surpass him.

The day after tomorrow he will face off against Rafael Nadal, to whom he lost all eight head-to-head matches.

Mini-comeback Kudermetova and defeats in pairs

Kudermetova's opponent went to the 72nd racket of the world Elena-Gabriela Ruse, who made her debut on the courts of Melbourne this year.

In 2021, the Romanian tennis player performed quite successfully on clay and won the first WTA tournament in her career, but she did not achieve such success on hard.

Therefore, it is not surprising that on an uncomfortable surface for herself, she did not look so convincing.

In the first set, the Russian woman outperformed Ruse in all key aspects and deservedly took the lead, but in the second set she landed in a difficult situation.

With the score 2-3, she made four unforced errors and gave up the game on her serve, leaving her with the prospect of spending much more time on the court than originally planned.

But at the right moment, Kudermetova mobilized and took the next four games, and with them the game - 6:2, 7:5. Thus, Veronica reached the third round of the Australian Open for the second year in a row and repeated her best result at the TBSh. Now she is waiting for a difficult test in the person of Maria Sakkari. Previously, the paths of the athletes crossed twice - in 2019, luck smiled at the Russian woman, but two years later, the native of Greece got revenge.

If in singles domestic tennis players did not suffer a single defeat, then in doubles they lost several representatives at once.

For women, Daria Kasatkina with Lyudmila Samsonova and Kamilla Rakhimova with Natela Dzalamidze covered the rackets simultaneously.

The former could not oppose anything to the Americans Daniela Rose Collins and Desira Kravchim, and the latter to the Japanese Shuko Aoyama and Ene Shibahara.

Only Anastasia Potapova, performing in a duet with Swede Rebecca Peterson, was able to overcome the barrier of the first round.

It took them three sets to cope with Romanian Irina Begu and Serbian Nina Stoyanovich - 2:6, 6:3, 7:5.

Barty's dominance and Shapovalov's test

As for the favorites, in addition to Khurkach, two more seeded tennis players could not overcome the second round barrier. And both sensations happened in the women's category. Belinda Bencic, who occupies the 22nd line in the WTA ranking, lost in two games to Amanda Anisimova, and Sara Sorribes Tormo, who is in the 32nd position, lost to Marta Kostyuk. It was not easy for Elina Svitolina. And if not for the problems of Armoni Tan with the calf muscle, the fight could have been even more fierce. The Frenchwoman pulled out the second set, but withdrew in the decisive with the score 1:5.

Fans of Denis Shapovalov had to be seriously worried.

Two days earlier, he fought with Laszlo Jere for three and a half hours, and this time he spent an hour more on the court - he needed all five games to defeat the South Korean Kwon Sun Wu.

At the end of the confrontation, the athlete did not hide his fatigue and joked that he would sleep in an ice bath that night.

It was not easy for the seventh racket of the world, Matteo Berrettini.

True, in his case, the difficulties began even before the meeting itself.

The Italian forgot his accreditation and could not immediately get into the locker room, after which he almost fell in the room under the stands.

Perhaps this was the reason why he had to play four games to defeat Stefan Kozlov, who received a wild-card.

But Alexander Zverev and Ashleigh Barty more than confidently overcame the barrier of the second round.

The current winner of the ATP Final Tournament did not notice the resistance from John Millman, in the third set he gave him a "steering wheel", and the first racket of the planet dealt with the offender of Varvara Gracheva - Lucia Bronzetti in just 54 minutes.

The hostess of the courts was once again flawless on the pitch, not allowing the opponent to make a break in the fifth meeting in a row.