Men’s second seed Novak Djokovic had no trouble reaching the quarterfinal but women’s top seed Ash Barty was made to sweat before she did the same at the 2020 Australian Open.
Djokovic cruised to another straight-set win, defeating the 14th seeded Argentina Diego Schwartzman 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 in his fourth round match on Sunday. The Serb world number two demolished his opponent by winning 75% of his first serves and broke Schwartzman four times out of the eight opportunities he got.
There were 38 winners to go with that which helped Djokovic making his 11th Australian Open quarterfinal.
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Speaking at the end of the match, Djokovic said his tactic was to not allow Schwrtzman any time and that paid rich dividends. He added:
“He’s one of the quickest players on the Tour. I tried to mix it up a bit, hit a few slices and bring him into the net sometimes. It worked well today.”
Djokovic will now take on the 32nd seed and former world number three Milos Raonic.
Raonic wasted no time in getting to the quarterfinals either, crushing Marin Cilic in straight sets. He won 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 with Cilic finding no answers to his booming serves.
However, Raonic will know he is up against it, having never won against Djokovic in their previous nine meetings. In fact, Raonic has won just two sets in those matches, having also lost to Djokovic at the 2015 Australian Open quarterfinals in straight sets.
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Australia’s Barty managed to avenge her defeats at the hands of Alison Riske as she proceeded to the quarterfinal of her home event as well. Barty defeated Riske 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 on Australia Day to set up a last-eight meeting with Petra Kvitova.
And having lost her first match of the season earlier this year, Barty has now extended her record to eight wins in a row since then.
Kvitova needed to survive the magic of Maria Sakkari in her fourth round too before the 2019 Australian Open runnerup bounced back to win 6-7, 6-3, 6-2. She said she was nervous to start things off, and that caused her to play badly. However, after that she was able to “feel her game” again which helped Kvitova come back and win the match.
Ons Jabeur stunned Qiang Wang in another fourth round match to move into the quarterfinal along with Sofia Kenin who finally ended the run of Cori Gauff. Tennys Sandgren overcame Fabio Fognini’s tantrums to enter the last-eight with a 7-6, 7-5, 6-7, 6-4 win over the Italian.
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