Draw in the battle Russia - USA: Khachanov played six set points and defeated Tiafoe, and Medvedev lost to Korday at the Australian Open

Battles of Russians with Americans

Despite a higher ATP ranking, Francis Tiafoe was hardly the clear favorite to face Karen Khachanov in the third round of the Australian Open.

At least on the grounds that earlier the paths of the athletes had already crossed twice, and in both cases luck was on the side of the Russian.

However, previous games were held on the grass courts of Wimbledon, and the American looked much more confident on hard courts.

True, at first in the reporting meeting it was absolutely not felt.

After a tense starting game, during which the Russian had to win back five break points, Khachanov practically did not let his opponent catch on at the reception.

In total, in the first two sets, he only gave his serve once, while he took someone else's serve three times and confidently led the match.

Tiafoe was not habitually aggressive on the back line and missed much more often (24:13 on unforced errors), and was practically helpless on the second ball (39% of rallies won).

But, as often happens, at some point Khachanov twitched, which was facilitated by local fans.

They accompanied each miss by Karen with a deafening roar, and a hit with a rumble, as a result of which the referee on the tower had to repeatedly make comments to the audience.

However, this did not bother them in any way.

At the same time, Tiafoe also felt the support of the stands: branded blows went along the line from the forehand, aces began to pass more and more often, and confidence appeared on the second serve.

As a result, Francis confidently took the third set, and in the fourth he reached the tie-break - and this with 20 unforced errors, overlapped by a huge number of actively won balls (27).

Moreover, the American started the shortened game so confidently that he immediately earned five set points, and then had one more, but could not realize them.

Khachanov pulled himself together and made an incredible comeback, making it to the fourth round of the Australian Open for the first time in his career - 6:3, 6:4, 3:6, 7:6 (11:9).

In the 1/8 finals, Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka is waiting for him.

The match between Daniil Medvedev and Sebastian Korda developed in a similar way.

The only difference is that a Russian was in the role of catching up.

Out of habit, he tried to act as the second number, and although he periodically waited for the opponent's mistakes, he himself was too passive.

And if in the first set this did not prevent him from reaching the tie-break, which was largely facilitated by the nervous American, then in the second Daniil was punished in full for "toothlessness".

Korda took the lead 2-0 and came close to creating one of the biggest sensations of the tournament.

The beginning of the third installment also turned out to be a disaster for Medvedev.

He gave his pitch to zero and until the eighth game he could not do anything at the reception.

Korda was incredibly calm, consistently hitting the first ball, and his exits to the net and sudden shortened ones became an insoluble problem for the opponent.

But he did not manage to remain extremely concentrated for a long time.

A couple of mistakes - and Daniel has already leveled the situation, and then brought the matter to another tie-break.

But there everything immediately did not go according to the scenario of the Russian.

He lost six draws out of seven and got into a difficult situation.

He managed to heroically win back three match points, but it was not possible to repeat the success of Khachanov.

With a magnificent backcross, Korda put an end to the confrontation and knocked out the finalist of the previous two Australian Open draws - 7:6 (9:7), 6:3, 7:6 (7:4).

For the first time since 2020, Daniil could not get into the fourth round of the Grand Slam tournament, and at the end of the competition he will fall out of the top ten of the ATP rankings.

The last time he was outside the top 10 was in July 2019.

The failure of Ukrainian women

Russian tennis players could not please the fans and practically lost representation in doubles.

Of the two purely Russian duets, only Anastasia Potapova and Yana Sizikova managed to get into the second round, unexpectedly taking over the 13th seeded Kirsten Flipkens and Laura Siegemund.

Moreover, two sets were enough for them to win, even if in the first of them they had to sort things out in a tie-break.

At the same time, Veronika Kudermetova and Lyudmila Samsonova, who occupy places in the top 20 of the WTA singles ranking, lost to profile guys, the fourth seeded Storm Hunter and Elisa Mertens.

Domestic athletes confidently took the first set, and in the second they were a couple of rallies from reaching the next stage, but first they lost the tie-break, and then “fell apart” in the decisive game, making twice as many unforced errors - 11:5.

As a result, defeat with a score of 6:2, 6:7 (6:8), 1:6.

Completed their performance in doubles and two more Russians, who chose foreigners as partners.

And if Alexandra Panova and Natela Dzalamidze still put up decent resistance to their rivals, then Ekaterina Alexandrova and Vivian Heisen surrendered almost without a fight.

In total, they were content with only three won games and capitulated after 56 minutes - 2:6, 1:6.

The day was extremely unfortunate for tennis players from Ukraine.

Three girls tried for the first time in their careers to break into the fourth round of the Australian Open in singles, but suffered crushing defeats.

For three, Angelina Kalinina, Katerina Beindl and Marta Kostyuk, who played with seeded athletes, took only ten games, and exactly half of them fell to Kalinina, who fought Barbora Kreichikova for almost an hour and a half.

The other two received a "steering wheel" from Elena Ostapenko and Jessica Pegula, respectively, and sheathed rackets.

But Victoria Azarenka advanced to the next round.

Prior to that, she coped with the Madison Keys three times, and did not make an exception in Melbourne.

And although the meeting turned out to be a three-set one, there was no intrigue as such.

The Belarusian tennis player failed in the opening game, but in the other two she was completely stronger.

The reason for this was stability: while the American collected a collection of 39 unforced errors, the former first racket of the planet was limited to only 18.

Murray's miracle comeback

Technically, the meeting with the participation of two-time Olympic champion Andy Murray took place within the framework of the previous game day, but turned out to be so long that it ended well after midnight Australian time.

The battle between the British and Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis lasted 5 hours and 50 minutes and became the longest in the careers of both tennis players, and the performance of the owner of the courts was astonishing.

He broke out with 102 actively won balls and 37 aces, but even this was not enough for success.

The Briton miraculously rallied only after he lost two games and gave up twice in the third.

After that, he did not allow the opponent to earn a single match point and won a fantastic victory - 4:6, 6:7 (4:7), 7:6 (7:5), 6:3, 7:5.

Thanks to this, Murray not only made it to the third round of the Australian Open for the first time since 2017, where he will face off against Roberto Bautista-Agut.

He holds the all-time record for most comebacks from 0-2 in the Open Era.

The Briton for the 11th time managed to get out of a difficult situation and bypassed Roger Federer, Boris Becker and Aaron Krikstein in this indicator.

At the same time, it cannot be said that both opponents were glad to go down in history in this way.

Even during the meeting, Murray wondered why they were forced to play at such a late time, and his dissatisfaction was only intensified by the referee's refusal to give him a toilet break.

As for Kokkinakis, even on the court he made a couple of indecent gestures, and after the end of the confrontation he again gave vent to emotions.

The frustrated Australian wrote: "This ... (damn. -

) sport."

It is all the more surprising that already eight hours after the end of the duel, 35-year-old Murray returned to the courts of Melbourne for training.

And to journalists' questions about his well-being, he answered with a smile and a thumbs up.