Defeat from Khachanov

Despite the higher place in the rating and the advantage in personal meetings, it was hardly possible to call Karen Khachanov with 100% certainty the favorite of the match with Yoshihito Nishioka.

Over the past six months, the Japanese has presented more than one sensation, having dealt with three tennis players from the top 20 at once.

The US Open finalist Kasper Ruud, the talented Dane Holger Rune and his future opponent in the 1/4 finals of the Australian Open Andrey Rublev suffered defeats.

Moreover, he beat the Russian at a tournament in Washington, where he reached the final.

At the same time, in the US capital, Nishioka upset more than one representative of Russia.

It was there that he soaked the score in the confrontation with Khachanov, interrupting his streak of two victories.

The duel turned out to be very protracted and lasted almost two and a half hours, and both sets ended in a tie-break.

There the Japanese was much more confident, giving the opponent a total of only three points.

This time, everything went according to a fundamentally different scenario.

Opponents spent a total of two hours on the court, and the first two games did fit in 47 minutes.

Khachanov did not notice any resistance from Nishioka and literally "destroyed" him on the court.

If in the starting period the Japanese had 29% of the draws, which did not help him get at least one game, then in the second he took only two points out of 26 possible.

Yes, and for this it is partially worth saying “thank you” to the Russian, who made an unforced mistake in one of the episodes.

Khachanov did not stop there and succeeded in receiving in the third set, winning 14 consecutive games in a row.

Everything seemed to be heading towards one of the biggest debacles in Grand Slam history, but suddenly Nishioka pulled himself together and even restored parity.

The Japanese felt confident and endured until the next tie-break, where until that moment he had never lost to the Russian.

But sooner or later any series ends.

Karen finished off the opponent and for the first time in his career made it to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open - 6:0, 6:0, 7:6 (7:4).

Thus, Khachanov entered the elite group of nine current representatives of the tour, who managed to get to 1/4 on all four TBSH.

In addition to veterans Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka, Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori, the Italians Matteo Berrettini and Yannick Sinner submitted to this bar.

But in order to repeat his success at the US Open and reach the semi-finals for the second major in a row, Khachanov needs to beat the offender Daniil Medvedev.

In the fourth round, Sebastian Korda made another sensation and knocked out the 11th racket of the planet Hubert Hurkach.

The meeting lasted three and a half hours and ended only in a tie-break in the fifth set.

With a score of 5:5, the Pole earned two break points and almost took the lead, but the American miraculously managed to equalize the situation, and then brought the matter to victory - 6:3, 3:6, 2:6, 6:1, 7: 6 (10:7).

“We had an unreal match at Wimbledon (with Korda. -

RT

), after that last year I lost to him twice on hard - in Cincinnati and Antwerp.

Now he beat Danya.

Since the middle of that year, he has greatly improved, and this can be seen from the game and the results, ”Khachanov spoke about the future counterpart in a conversation with Sports.ru.

Parade of sensations

However, Hurkach's fiasco was not the only surprise in the seventh day of the Australian Open.

Earlier in Melbourne, Jiri Legechka had already forced two tennis players from the top 25 ATP rankings to cover the rackets, and this time the sixth seed of the competition, Felix Auger-Aliassime, became his “victim”.

The Canadian performed 20 aces, chalked up 39 actively won goals, but this was not enough to defeat the 21-year-old Czech.

Having lost the first game, he pulled himself together and in the other three he broke the resistance of his star opponent, for the first time making it to the quarterfinals of the TBSH.

Previously, he did not even reach the second round.

In the girls' competition, only Jessica Pegula was able to confirm the status of the favorite, having dealt with Barbora Kreychikova without any problems.

While Corey Gauff and Iga Sviontek left the championship.

The first one was beaten by Elena Ostapenko, who for the first time since 2018 overcame the barrier of the fourth round at the Majors, and the first racket of the planet could not cope with Elena Rybakina.

Thus, for the first time in the history of the Open Era, none of the two strongest athletes in the men's and women's categories reached the quarterfinals of the TBSH.

Previous defeats were suffered by Rafael Nadal, Kasper Ruud and Ons Jaber.

Stefanos Tsitsipas almost followed the example of more status colleagues.

The third seed started the meeting with Yannick Sinner well and in the first two games, although he gave his serve once, he took someone else's serve twice.

But then how cut off.

The Greek got nervous, began to make mistakes on the simplest balls, and in the next two sets earned only one break point, but failed to take advantage of his chance.

The Italian, on the contrary, regularly created problems for the opponent at the reception, and although the implementation left much to be desired (two out of 18), this was enough to make an impressive comeback.

The problem is that Sinner's courage just as suddenly disappeared.

Even in the fourth set, the percentage of hits by the first ball dropped sharply (48%), and in the fifth it was not possible to return it to its usual indicators of 75%.

This provoked a number of problems in the form of 11 unforced errors and six break points at once, which he allowed Tsitsipas to earn in just two games.

But if the first time he managed to get away from the score 0:40, then the second time luck was not on his side.

Stefanos took over the advantage and soon got a ticket to the quarterfinals - 6:4, 6:4, 3:6, 4:6, 6:3.