Two-time former champion Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) defeated 11th-ranked Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) by 2-0 (6:1, 7:5) to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open for the seventh time. The Belarusian tennis player hit more winners in the match and made fewer unforced errors. Jelena Ostapenko fell into the trap of her own chaotic aggression on the court, and in the second set she tried to get back into the match, leading 3:1. After that, however, at 5:3, she allowed two consecutive breaks and eventually gave up after wasting four opportunities to level at 6:6 in the 12th game of the set.
“I like challenges. There are moments when you can’t run away. You have to face the problem and solve it to your advantage. But it’s something you have to have strength and go through”, said the satisfied Victoria Azarenka after the match.
Victoria Azarenka’s next opponent will be Ukrainian qualifier Dayana Yastremska, who equaled her best Grand Slam performance after 2-1 (6:2, 2:6, 6:1) win over 27th-seeded Emma Navarro (USA).
Dayana Yastremska has been knocked out in the first round in her previous seven Grand Slam appearances and has not been past the second week of a Grand Slam tournament since reaching the same stage at Wimbledon in 2019.
“I was feeling pretty nervous”, said Dayana Yastremska, who hit 36 winners. “In the second set, I felt a little pain in my neck and I thought I might have to come out of the match, but I told myself I wasn’t going to give up. I tried not to think too much about the pain in the third set because it takes you out of concentration”, added she.
The Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya eliminated the 2017 champion Sloane Stephens (USA) after 2-1 (6:7, 6:1, 6:4) in another match of the third round, and because of the family, the audience congratulated her at the end of the match with the popular Russian song “Kalinka”. Naturally, unranked and without serious experience, for Anna Kalinskaya this is the first ranking in her career at such a stage, as she had never passed the second round of a Grand Slam until today.
Jasmine Paolini (Italy) reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time after winning by 2-0 (7:6, 6:4) over Anna Blinkova, who knocked out the third0seeded Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan) in the previous round and had everyone in the tennis world talking about her. From game to game today, however, Anna Blinkova’s strength was running out and in the end she looked much more drained than her opponent.
Meanwhile, Oceane Dodin (France) eliminated her compatriot Clara Burel after 2-0 (6:2, 6:4), while Qinwen Zheng (China) defeated Yafan Wang by 2-1 (6:4, 2:6, 7:6) in the all-Chinese clash in the third round.
