Australian Open: Federer in 14th Quarters, Djokovic Crashes Out
A wrap of all the big Australian Open games on Monday, 22 January.
Tennys Sandgren had never won a Grand Slam match or beaten a top 10 player until last week.
Now he's into the Australian Open quarter-finals on debut after adding an upset win over No 5-seeded Dominic Thiem on Monday, 22 January, to his earlier victory over 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka.
The 26-year-old American, who entered the season's opening major ranked 97th, missed a match point in the fourth set but held on for a 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (7), 6-3 win over Thiem.
"I don't know if this is a dream or not — all you guys are here, so maybe it's not," he said in an on-court TV interview. “I'm not in my underwear, so maybe it's not a dream. Trying to keep riding the wave," said Sandgren.
He's only the second man in 20 years to reach the quarters on debut at Melbourne Park.
Next up he will meet 21-year-old South Korean ranked 58th Hyeon Chung who defeated six-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic 7-6 (4), 7-5, 7-6 (3) in the fourth round.
Federer Reaches Quarters for 14th Time
Defending champion Roger Federer had no real difficulties in reaching the Australian Open quarter-finals for the 14th time, accounting for Marton Fucsovics 6-4, 7-6 (3), 6-2.
The 19-time major winner had never played Fucsovics but had beaten his coach — Attila Savolt — here in the second round in 2002.
Federer will renew a lengthy rivalry next against Tomas Berdych, who returned to the quarterfinals for the seventh time at Melbourne Park with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 win over Fabio Fognini.
Federer leads their career head-to-heads 19-6, including all four times they've met in Melbourne and in the Wimbledon semifinals last year.
"We have had some good ones over the years going back all the way to the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004," said Federer, recalling Berdych's comeback win in their first meeting.
The win over Fucsovics was Federer's first day match of the 2018 tournament, and he joked about needing sunglasses and a towel for the beach but said really the only change was to set the alarm for a different time.
Kerber’s Fight to Quarters
Angelique Kerber, the only Grand Slam singles winner remaining in the women's draw, was up earlier, and got a serious wakeup call.
For a while it appeared Kerber's progression could unravel against No 88 Hsieh Su-wei, a former top-ranked doubles player with a double-handed grip on both sides, until she regained momentum for a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 win. That earned Kerber a quarter-final spot against US Open finalist Madison Keys.
With a mix of slice and chips, lobs and bunts, whippy half-volleys and wristy crosscourt ground strokes off both wings, Hsieh pushed Kerber to the extremes.
Kerber, who won the Australian and US Open titles in 2016 and is on an 13-match winning streak to start 2018, said:
Keys returned to the quarter-finals for the first time in three years with a 6-3, 6-2 win over No 8-seeded Caroline Garcia, and is yet to drop a set so far.
(This article has been edited for length.)
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