Australian Open: Simona Halep beaten by Alize Cornet
Two-time Grand Slam winner Simona Halep is out of the Australian Open after suffering a fourth-round defeat by France’s Alize Cornet.
Two-time Grand Slam winner Simona Halep is out of the Australian Open after suffering a fourth-round defeat by France’s Alize Cornet.
Top seeds Gordon Reid and Alfie Hewett reach the final of the Australian Open men’s wheelchair doubles as Lucy Shuker progresses in the women’s event.
Alex de Minaur feels his 2022 season is already heading in the right direction, even after his career-best run at the Australian Open came to an end in the fourth round against 11th seed Jannik Sinner on Monday.
“It’s been a good start to the season, bringing in some good momentum,” said de Minaur in his post-match press conference. “[I] came up short today, but [I’m] happy with where my level is going. It’s definitely a big improvement from last year. I’m excited for what’s to come.”
The Australian World No. 42 battled hard but ultimately fell short, losing 7-6(3), 6-3, 6-4 to an inspired performance from the Italian on Rod Laver Arena.
With his defeat, de Minaur slipped to a 0-3 ATP Head2Head record against Sinner. The Australian acknowledged another special performance from his opponent, but has already identified the moments in the match that he can learn from.
“I had chances,” said de Minaur. “[I] didn’t take those opportunities, those breakpoints early. I came up with an opponent that played very well and just played some very good tennis in the important moments.
“We all know the amazing firepower he has, so I felt like I played a loose game to get broken [in the second set]. I just missed a couple forehands which I tried to press a little bit more than maybe I should have. He got the early break and was able to run away.”
De Minaur was nonetheless pleased with his Australian swing, having given a strong performance for his country at the ATP Cup that included a win over World No. 7 Matteo Berrettini, before reaching the fourth round in Melbourne. He credited a new mental approach for his early-season success.
“It’s a long year,” said de Minaur, “but my hopes and goals are to keep at least my attitude and my mindset throughout the whole year. It’s easier said than done, but that’s the focus.”
De Minaur has also benefitted from the strong camaraderie shared among the Aussie contingent on the ATP Tour, particularly helpful when under pressure to perform at a home slam. He remains optimistic about the prospects of the five Australians that remain in the men’s doubles draw.
“As a fellow Australian, it’s exciting whenever any Aussie player does well,” said de Minaur. “I think we’ve got such a great team chemistry. I mean, you’ve got Nick [Kyrgios] and Kokk [Thanasi Kokkinakis] doing great stuff. [Matthew] Ebden and [Max] Purcell still, Peersy [John Peers] still going. I think it’s exciting stuff.
“It’s amazing the level they can show and put on the court day in and day out, and it’s going to be very interesting to see how the week unfolds.”
Greek fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas battles to a thrilling five-set victory over American Taylor Fritz to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals.
Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury are on the hunt for consecutive Grand Slam doubles titles, and they kept that target within their sights Monday, defeating wild cards Dane Sweeny and Li Tu 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals at the Australian Open.
The 2021 US Open champions, who also triumphed together at Melbourne Park in 2020, dropped just one point behind their first serve in the match and offered their Australian opponents no breathing room on John Cain Arena.
Ram and Salisbury hit 21 winners and made just three unforced errors in a solid all-round performance as they advanced to the last eight in Melbourne for the third year in a row.
Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell made it two all-Aussie pairings in the quarter-finals by upsetting 13th seeds Raven Klaasen and Ben McLachlan 7-6(3), 6-3. Ebden and Purcell fired 27 winners, including nine aces and claimed the only break of the match in the second set to defeat the South African-Japanese pairing, joining countrymen Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios in the last eight.
Ebden and Purcell will next face 10th seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski. The Dutch-British tandem has already claimed two tour-level titles since coming together at the start of 2022, triumphing at the Melbourne Summer Set and the Adelaide International 2. The good form shows no sign of abating as Koolhof and Skupski hit 22 winners and won 81 per cent (29/36) of their first-serve en route to a 6-3, 6-4 win against Marcos Giron and Soonwoo Kwon.
Russia’s Daniil Medvedev demonstrates again why he is the man to beat at the Australian Open with a patient win over Maxime Cressy in the Melbourne heat.
Britain’s Joe Salisbury and American partner Rajeev Ram win in straight sets to reach the Australian Open.
Gael Monfils is into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, where he will play Matteo Berrettini for a place in the last four. Before that showdown, get to know more about the Frenchman’s love of video games and the esports industry.
ATPTour.com spoke to Monfils about how he first got into video games as a teen, what he enjoys about Twitch, his favourite streamers and more.
Tell us about your love of video games. When did you start playing, and what are some of the earliest games you remember playing?
It was on the first Nintendo, I enjoyed playing with my dad. Then one Christmas I got the Super Nintendo and started to play a lot of Dragon Ball Z. Then in a tournament in Paris, I think I was 13, the winner would get the PlayStation 1. You had to win it. It was a big goal for me, and then I won it and I started to be a fan of the PlayStation. I played Final Fantasy, and then it kept escalating with computers and everything.
What are you playing at the moment?
I play quite a lot of games. I play FIFA, Warzone, 2K, World Tour Tennis, Mario Tennis. I want to start playing World of Warcraft. I play Naruto. I play every game. I won’t say I have one game especially, but different genres, different types of games.
It is quite funny playing [Mario Tennis]. I think people love it. You get superpowers. I really like when you can hit some big smashes, you have a target.
Watch Gael Takes A Monfils Quiz:
What is your home setup like?
I have got three screens, a big tower, a stream deck, the lights, the Elgato to stream from the TV, the Xbox and the computer. That’s pretty much everything.
What do you take with you on the road? What are the challenges of travelling and transporting everything?
I bring my computer because I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering. I play a lot of that, so I just bring my computer. Sometimes I bring my PlayStation but most of the time I bring my computer. That’s enough to play all the games I like. I just put it in the backpack.
Which ATP Tour players do you play video games with? What do you guys play?
I play with quite a lot. We like to share some moments together, especially the ones you get along with quite well. We play quite a lot together. A lot of players are good, I won’t give names.
How did you get into Twitch?
For a long time, I have been a fan of Twitch and been looking up some streamers. During lockdown, I thought it would be a good time for me to step onto the platform and try myself. I have just been a big fan of gamers on Twitch.
I started to really like the community and the exchange, and I saw that it could be maybe more than just the gaming, so I really like the platform for that. During the lockdown I was Twitching a lot, but I was doing some more hobbies and am a big fan of watches… it was another hobby among my hobbies.
Who are some of your favorite Twitch streamers/content creators?
They are French. One is Domingo and [the other is] Ponce. Those are two guys I really like to watch.
You also used Twitch in some other ways. How much fun was all that for you?
What you can do on the platform is stream some practices, and definitely having a show during the [Nitto ATP] Finals was a very good experience. That you could handle a show and have a good exchange with the community was a great experience.
As a tennis player, you’re now considered a ‘traditional sports’ athlete. What are your thoughts on the massive rise of esports/esports athletes?
It is very good, because I think sometimes people don’t see how hard it is for the esports athletes to be on the top of the game. It requires a lot of practice and a lot of hard work, and some people think it is just video games. But it is not. I would like to see it a little bit from the inside, and I really hope people will get it. It’s definitely hard work. Esports are a big thing.
Youth will serve— and return —on Monday in the Australian Open fourth round. All but one of the day’s singles competitors are 25 or younger, with 33-year-old Marin Cilic the veteran outlier. Five are recent graduates of the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals, including former champions Stefanos Tsitsipas and Jannik Sinner, and two-time finalist Alex de Minaur.
Sinner, 20, is the youngest man remaining in the Melbourne draw following the five-set exit of 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz. The 11th seed will take on de Minaur as both look to build on career-best AO runs, each with the loss of just one set.
The 22-year-old from Sydney has not beaten Sinner in their two tour-level meetings, including the 2019 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals title match. The Italian had the home advantage in that meeting, but that will flip this time around with the Melbourne crowd ready to back the last remaining Aussie in the men’s singles draw.
“I know what’s coming: immense firepower,” said de Minaur, who will return to Rod Laver Arena after Laver himself watched his third-round win over Pablo Andujar on the show court. “I’m going to have to be ready to… not get bullied around the court and really take it to him.”
Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
In the same section of the draw, Tsitsipas will take on Taylor Fritz in another battle of under-25s, with the American playing in the first major fourth-round match of his career. Fritz earned that honour the hard way with a five-set win against Roberto Bautista Agut.
“It’s huge,” said Fritz in his post-match press conference. “It seems stupid, like after that match I was almost close to tearing up a bit. So many people have made the second week of Slams, but it’s just eluded me for so long… it means a tonne. I’m proud. It didn’t come easy; I beat an incredibly tough guy.”
Across seven previous third-round major appearances, Fritz’s opponents have included Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Dominic Thiem. His 20th seed has protected him from that class of opposition this fortnight—until his meeting with the World No. 4 this round.
The two have shared the court many times as they came up the junior ranks together, and Tsitsipas holds a 2-0 edge in their ATP Head2Head record, with both wins coming on indoor hard courts in 2019 (Laver Cup, Rolex Paris Masters). Despite that record, Fritz said he doesn’t mind the matchup against the Greek.
In the bottom quarter of the draw—Daniil Medvedev’s section—the Russian will take on another American playing at this stage of a Slam for the first time. Maxime Cressy, the lone unseeded player remaining in the bottom half, will bring his serve-and-volley game to the crafty baseliner.
In the pair’s first ATP Head2Head meeting, the former UCLA star will be on the attack, regardless of Medvedev’s elite returning skills.
“I actually don’t even think about my opponent because they try many things,” he said after knocking off Australian wild card Christopher O’Connell in the third round. “He would try to return close or if that doesn’t work, far from the baseline… They try different things to get in my head and if I focus on them it disrupts my game. My mindset is to completely block off what my opponent does.”
The World No. 2 does things better than most on the tennis court, though Cressy does have the experience of playing both Stefanos Tsitsipas (2020 US Open) and Alexander Zverev (2021 Australian Open) at the Slams, with both matches ending in defeat after three tight sets. He also played Rafael Nadal in the final of the Melbourne Summer Set earlier in January — another straight-sets loss, albeit a tight one, too.
Medvedev, a chess-lover, is preparing to counter Cressy’s aggressive opening gambit: “We’ll have to prepare well tactically, mentally,” he said in press, admitting to being unfamiliar with the American’s game. “I heard he serves pretty well. So if you don’t have a good serve, probably you won’t serve-and-volley, and it’s not going to be effective,” he added with a smile.
“I do think it’s possible, yeah, to be a top player like this. But like no matter what you do — slice, serve-and-volley, or return good — if you want to be at the top, top, you need to make it almost perfect, because other guys will try to break you and your style.”
Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
The Medvedev-Cressy winner will face either Cilic or Felix Auger-Aliassime in the quarter-finals. The Canadian youngster is after his third straight Slam quarter-final after reaching the last eight at Wimbledon and the final four at the US Open last season. He’s gotten progressively sharper over the course of his Melbourne run, advancing in five, then four, then three sets in the early rounds, most recently with a clinical 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 win over 24th seed Daniel Evans.
Cilic’s last major quarter-final came in 2018, when he followed up an AO final run with last-eight appearances in Paris and New York. While he has not been able to find that form in recent years, he certainly showed it in a 7-5, 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-3 win over fifth seed Andrey Rublev in the fourth round.
Ahead of his match with FAA, 12 years his junior at 21, Cilic was asked if he enjoyed getting one over on the younger generation.
“Satisfaction is on a different path,” his veteran answer began. “Satisfaction is there because, I played an incredible match [against Rublev], and it gave me such a great excitement. At the moment I’m feeling really positive about myself. Obviously worked a lot and went with lots of ups and downs. Then a couple of difficult seasons. And to play this well, at this kind of a tournament, it’s definitely, absolutely great satisfaction for me.”
Cilic was 25 when he won the 2014 US Open. Nearly eight years and two major finals later, his booming baseline game has him in title contention once more.
Monday’s slate will compete the men’s quarter-final draw in Melbourne, with the top half already set.
Denis Shapovalov upset World No. 3 Alexander Zverev on Sunday at the Australian Open to reach the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park for the first time. The Canadian knows it will not get any easier Down Under, with 20-time major champion Rafael Nadal waiting in the last eight.
“I’m definitely expecting a long battle out there. Obviously he makes you play a lot. His defence is very good. He’s very good at what he does,” Shapovalov said. “So [I’m going to] have to try to play my game, take it to him and keep doing what I have been doing, playing patient, fighting for every point, and just picking my spots to play aggressively.”
Shapovalov made his first big statement on the ATP Tour at the age of 18 in 2017, when he stunned Nadal in Montreal in front of his home fans. Now 22, he has an opportunity to spring another upset to reach his second major semi-final.
It has been a tremendous start to the season for Shapovalov and Canadian tennis overall. Shapovalov and countryman Felix Auger-Aliassime, who will play 27th seed Marin Cilic in the fourth round of the Australian Open on Monday, led their country to the ATP Cup title in Week 1.
“I think what we’ve been doing has been amazing, especially with the start of the season for Canada,” Shapovalov said. “And what we’re doing in Australia here is special, as well. Hopefully a lot of Canadians are able to watch.”
Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
Shapovalov is now 7-1 in singles this season. It is a scorching start, especially considering he tested positive for COVID-19 upon his arrival in Australia and had to quarantine, leaving him to wonder how things would go Down Under.
“There were a lot of doubts once I got to Australia with the quarantine, having gotten COVID, not sure how I would take it, not sure I would be able to play ATP Cup,” Shapovalov said. “Obviously very happy with the way I’m feeling, first of all, coming out of quarantine, playing ATP Cup, had a little bit of doubts. [I] wasn’t ready to play the first match and kind of worked my way through the tournament and started to feel back to normal towards the end of that week.
“So it was a good sign. And then coming here, I had a couple of aches and wasn’t feeling 100 per cent physically. So wasn’t practising that much, to be honest, and [was] just trying to prepare the body as best as possible.”
The No. 14 player in the ATP Rankings also has had to get used to having a new coach. At the end of the 2021 season, Shapovalov and Mikhail Youzhny mutually parted ways. The Canadian began working with Jamie Delgado, the former coach of Andy Murray, and so far “it’s been awesome” according to the lefty.
“Jamie was one of the guys that me and my team had thought about. We heard that he had split with Andy. So we just gave him a call and asked if he’d be interested to join the team and try out and see how it would work,” Shapovalov said. “Obviously it’s been really good so far. It’s been just a couple of weeks. Obviously it’s really new. But we’ve definitely clicked in terms of personalities and in terms of working on the court. I think we both have kind of the same vision for my game.
“I feel like he’s a super understanding person. Obviously he’s got so much experience and he’s been through so much with Andy. So he’s definitely got a lot of experience under his belt. That’s something that I really thought would be great to add to my team.”
Everything is going well for Shapovalov. Now, he will aim to maintain his level against 2009 Australian Open champion Nadal.
“Just really happy with where I am in terms of my game, in terms of the level right now. Obviously every day is different. But I feel like with every match I have gained a little bit of confidence and a little bit of comfort playing on these courts,” Shapovalov said. “I’m just pleased overall with my game so far and my fighting spirit. Just battling [it] out in every single match. Hopefully I can continue going this way.”
