The first Grand Slam title of the year is at stake at the Australian Open. We'll keep you up to date every day in our ticker.
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Ruud fails against Mensik
Casper Ruud (ATP 6) also has to return home. The Norwegian lost to the Czech Jakub Mensik (ATP 48) 2:6, 6:3, 1:6, 4:6. The first ever duel between these two players had a surprisingly clear outcome.
Mensik, who is only 19, impressed with both his serve (22 aces) and his attacking game (62 winners). Having lost to Hubert Hurkacz in the second round last year, this time he managed to beat a player from the top 10.
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Belinda Bencic reaches the 3rd round via a detour
Belinda Bencic reaches the 3rd round at the Australian Open. In her second outing, she beat Suzan Lamens (WTA 77) from the Netherlands 6:1, 7:6 (7:3) in 102 minutes.
The 27-year-old Swiss was the first to take the fast lane in Melbourne on Wednesday. Eight women's matches were scheduled in the first stage of the fourth day of the tournament at 11 a.m. local time. Due to rain, the start of play on the (uncovered) outdoor court number 6 was delayed by three quarters of an hour. Belinda Bencic's match started after all the others. For a long time, it looked as if Bencic would be the first to progress.
But then the task became tricky. Belinda Bencic (WTA 294) was leading 6:1, 3:0 after 40 minutes. Suzan Lamens (WTA 77), who had won the tournament in Osaka in the fall, had not yet managed a service game up to this point. Then the Dutchwoman successfully began to take more risks. She found her way back into the match. She twice came back from a break behind, managed to equalize and saved herself in the tie-break despite two match points from Bencic. In this, Bencic clearly prevailed 7:3.
In the third round on Friday, "Mama Belinda" cannot afford to take a time-out like she did in the second set against Lamens. The 27-year-old Swiss will face Japan's Naomi Osaka, who won four Grand Slam tournaments and topped the world rankings until four years ago, before also becoming a mother a year before Bencic.
![Belinda Bencic played for 40 minutes against Suzan Lamens, but it was still close for Bencic afterwards.]()
Belinda Bencic played for 40 minutes against Suzan Lamens, but it was still close for Bencic afterwards. sda -
Djokovic only wobbles briefly
Novak Djokovic (ATP 7) had to go through four sets against the young Portuguese player Jaime Faria (ATP 125), as he did in his opening match, but ultimately won 6:1, 6:7 (4:7), 6:3, 6:2. The second round match was his 430th Grand Slam match, which means he also surpassed the Swiss tennis icon Roger Federer in this statistic.
In the 3rd round, the ten-time Australian Open winner will face Tomas Machac (ATP 25). The direct comparison between the 37-year-old Serb and the 24-year-old Czech is 1:1. Machac last won in the semi-finals in Geneva last year.
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Alcaraz without any problems
Carlos Alcaraz, the world number 3, also won the second round match in three sets after his opening match. He beat Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka (WTA 65) 6:0, 6:1, 6:4. The 21-year-old Spaniard will play Portugal's Nuno Borges (ATP 33) in the third round.
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Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen fails in the 2nd round
Zheng Qinwen, last year's Olympic champion and finalist, is surprisingly defeated in the 2nd round by the German Laura Siegemund. These are the facts of the fourth tournament day at the Australian Open.
One year after reaching the final in Melbourne, Zheng Qinwen (WTA 5) became the first favorite to stumble at the Australian Open on Wednesday. The 22-year-old Chinese player lost 6:7 (3:7), 3:6 to the German doubles specialist Laura Siegemund (WTA 97), the oldest player in the women's singles. Zheng Qinwen regretted that she had not made the "right decisions" on the "important points".
![After reaching the final last year, Zheng Qinwen had to bow out in the second round this year]()
After reaching the final last year, Zheng Qinwen had to bow out in the second round this year sda -
Sabalenka with difficulty
Aryna Sabalenka, last year's winner and world number 1, secured her place in the 3rd round with a 6:3, 7:5 win over Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (WTA 54) from Spain. However, the Belarusian had a tough time and was trailing 2:5 in the second set before winning five games in a row.
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Stan Wawrinka fails against Lorenzo Sonego
Stan Wawrinka loses again in the first round in Melbourne: 4:6, 7:5, 5:7, 5:7 against Lorenzo Sonego. The Frenchman can no longer win at his former favorite tournament.
No question: Stan Wawrinka put in a strong performance against Lorenzo Sonego. Two months before his 40th birthday, the Frenchman even played phenomenally well at times - much better than most of last year and much better than a world number 156. During the four sets and three and a quarter hours, he only made 13 unforced errors! "That was a good match on my part. I can build on that. But it's still very disappointing that I didn't win," said Wawrinka in an interview with Swiss television.
Because in the end, what counts is what's on the scoreboard. And the scoreboard again showed that it just wasn't enough for Wawrinka. But the luck of the brave was on Lorenzo Sonego's side.
The best example of this was the rally in the eleventh game of the third set, when Wawrinka had all the advantages on his side, but in the end the Italian made the groundbreaking break with a passing shot from a full run with his back to the court. However, "Stan the Man" does not want to explain the defeat with luck or bad luck: "I had my chances in sets three and four. I didn't take them because Lorenzo (Sonego) played more courageously at those moments. He also served a little better. That's why he deserved to win. I now hope that I can start winning matches again very quickly."
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Andrei Rublev loses to the up-and-coming world champion
João Fonseca from Brazil, qualifier with a world ranking of 112, beats Andrei Rublev, the tournament's number 9, in three sets. These are the facts of the third tournament day at the Australian Open.
Andrei Rublev, undefeated at exhibitions in Saudi Arabia during the winter break, has lost eight of his last nine singles matches on the tour. Rublev lost to Fonseca 6:7 (1:7), 3:6, 6:7 (5:7). The Russian was still leading 3:1 in the third set.
João Fonseca (18) is regarded as the new Brazilian prodigy. Like Stefanos Tsitsipas (2018), Jannik Sinner (2019) and Carlos Alcaraz (2021) before him, he won the Next-Gen Masters, the world championship for under-23s, in December. He then won a Challenger tournament in Canberra. Including the three victories in qualifying for the Australian Open, Fonseca recently celebrated 14 wins in a row. In the 2nd round, he will face Lorenzo Sonego, the conqueror of Stan Wawrinka.
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Best performance for Monfils
The 38-year-old Frenchman Gaël Monfils achieved a first. In his 7:6 (9:7), 6:3, 6:7 (6:8), 6:7 (5:7), 6:4 victory over the number 30 seed Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, the Swiss Indoors winner, he did not have to fend off a single break point. This has never happened before since points scoring began (1991), when a player has not conceded a single break point to his opponent in a five-set singles match. Nevertheless, Mpetshi Perricard should have won the match: On a set point in the first set, which he subsequently lost, he missed a "penalty" (smash point) at the net.
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Van de Zandschulp with a masterstroke
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The tremble of the three-time finalist
The Russian Daniil Medvedev, three-time finalist at the Australian Open, needed five sets against the Thai Kasidit Samrej, the world number 416.
Medvedev was even 6:2, 4:6, 3:6 behind against Samrej, who made it into the main draw thanks to a wild card, before clearly winning the fourth and fifth sets (6:1, 6:2). In the third set, Medvedev destroyed the net camera in frustration over a missed volley. At the Australian Open, including his last three matches last year, Medvedev had to go through five sets for the fourth time in a row. Medvedev lost two of his three finals in Melbourne - 2022 against Rafael Nadal and 2023 against Novak Djokovic - in five sets after leading 2:0.
![Daniil Medvedev remains in contention at the Australian Open.]()
Daniil Medvedev remains in contention at the Australian Open. Picture: sda -
Rybakina loses only 2 games
Kazakh Yelena Rybakina (25), the 2022 Wimbledon winner and world No. 7, won the opening match against 16-year-old Australian Emerson Jones 6:1, 6:1. Rybakina has now won 90 sets either 6:0 or 6:1 in her professional career.
More interesting than Rybakina's victory, however, was her coaching situation. Newly signed Goran Ivanisevic, the ex-coach of Novak Djokovic, coached her. Stevano Vukov, her second coach who had been provisionally suspended by the WTA, was not present. "But," says Rybakina, "he coaches me too. We talk on the phone every day." Rybakina apparently hired Vukov, under whose wing she had won Wimbledon, behind Ivanisevic's back.
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Dimitrov gives up
Like Tsitsipas, Grigor Dimitrov (ATP 10) is also continuing a less than pleasing series. The Bulgarian had to retire from his third Grand Slam tournament in a row due to an injury. Francesco Passaro (ATP 104), who truly lives up to the term "lucky loser", had to kiss his hand. He had lost in the last round of qualifying and had only slipped into the main draw due to another withdrawal. Dimitrov was already complaining of hip pain last week and retired injured in the semi-finals in Brisbane the week before.
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Tsitsipas fails in the first round
The Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (ATP 11) lost to the up-and-coming Alex Michelsen (ATP 41) in 2:45 hours 5:7, 3:6, 6:2, 4:6. The 20-year-old American celebrated his first victory over a top 20 player at a major tournament. However, Michelsen showed nerves in the end: in the fourth set, he twice squandered a break lead with four double faults. However, Tsitsipas also handed his opponent the decisive break to make it 5:4 in the fourth set with a double fault.
Stefanos Tsitsipas lost very early at a Grand Slam tournament for the third time in a row: at Wimbledon last summer in the second round and now in Australia, as at the US Open, in the starting round.
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Viktorija Golubic's winning streak comes to an end
After 15 victories, Viktorija Golubic's winning streak at the Australian Open comes to an end. After missing two match points, the 32-year-old from Zurich loses to Elise Mertens from Belgium.
After two hours and 50 minutes, Mertens converted her second match point to win 4:6, 7:6 (10:8), 6:4. She thus maintained her astonishing streak. In the last seven years, Mertens has only failed once in the first round of all Grand Slam tournaments.
Viktorija Golubic came close to knocking the Hobart finalist (last week) out of the tournament. Golubic, who ended last season with tournament victories in Jiujiang (WTA 250) and Limoges (Challenger) and opened the new year with three wins without dropping a set in the qualifiers for Melbourne, played extremely strongly for two hours. She had match points in the tiebreak of the second set at 6:4 and 6:5.
Golubic reached the 3rd round in Melbourne for the first time a year ago. Prior to that, she had lost 13 times in the starting round at major tournaments on hard courts (Australian Open, US Open). The Swiss will drop around 13 places in the world rankings in two weeks' time.
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Novak Djokovic corrects false start
1st set: A false start for Novak Djokovic: The Serb loses the first set against 19-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy 4:6 and has to chase a deficit.
2nd set: Basavareddy also holds his own in the second set and the match remains evenly poised until 3:3. Then the clear favorite finally manages his first break - and serves the set home with a commanding 6:3. The false start is corrected.
3rd set: Djokovic gets the next break in the very first game and then defends it confidently. Without having to fend off a break point, the Serb wins the third game 6:4.
4th set: Djokovic gets his first march balls at 5:1. The 19-year-old Basavareddy fends them off. One game later, Djokovic closes out the set and secures victory.
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Alcaraz wins, Kyrgios is eliminated
Carlos Alcaraz starts the first Grand Slam tournament of the year with a commanding victory. The Spaniard was only really challenged by the Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko in the second set and won 6:1, 7:5 and 6:1 after just under two hours.
Nick Kyrgios, on the other hand, has already been eliminated. The local hero surprisingly had no chance against Britain's Jacob Fearnly and lost 6:7, 3:6 and 6:7.
