After eight days of wall-to-wall tennis, the field has narrowed, and the stakes have risen: eight remain, each getting just a glimpse grand slam glory.
Barty. Kvitova. Kenin. Jabeur. Federer. Sandgren. Djokovic. Raonic. It’s a curious mix if there ever was one. Simultaneously familiar and fresh, there’s a player for everyone – the only question is of course, is who can keep it going?
Read on for a look at all the quarterfinal action on Tuesday in Melbourne:
(All matches on Rod Laver Arena)
From 11:00am AEDT:
Sofia Kenin (USA) [14] v Ons Jabeur (TUN)
A quarter featuring Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, naturally the two left standing are… Sofia Kenin and Ons Jabeur? Their fifth career meeting, Kenin’s 3-1 head-to-head advantage makes her a clear favourite, especially considering that unlike Jabeur’s previous opponent Wang Qiang, the American is going to be much more adept stringing her along the baseline, making it much harder for the Tunisian to set-up one of her line-painting forehands. Nevertheless, Jabeur’s shotmaking ability should make things interesting… just probably not enough to walk away with the W.
Not before 12:30pm:
Ashleigh Barty (AUS) [1] v Petra Kvitova (CZE) [7]
The stars of some absolutely cracking contests in 2019, what are the chances the first meeting between Ash Barty and Petra Kvitova of 2020 produces something similar? Essentially a rivalry of two halves, Kvitova won the first four matches the pair played before Barty won the last three, so both women have cause for confidence, although the Aussie in front of her home crowd would have to be a slight favourite. How this one goes will depend primarily on how effective Kvitova is on serve, and how consistently Barty can create angles off her forehand in rallies – if the former succeeds, she’ll have the confidence to hit through her opponent from the baseline, the latter, and the Czech’s movement will be exposed as she is slowly whittled down. Really though, you might as well toss a coin, or better yet, just sit back and enjoy the show.
Not before 2:30pm:
Roger Federer (SUI) [3] v Tennys Sandgren (USA)
I don’t know what it is about Tennys Sandgren and the Australian Open, but he sure as hell likes playing here. His second AO quarterfinal in three years, on paper you wouldn’t give him much chance of progressing past Roger Federer, but with some of the sloppy play we’ve seen from the Swiss in the past two rounds, you can’t rule it out. If Sandgren can do as he did against Fabio Fognini and keep balls in play while moving his man from side-to-side, he’ll have a sliver of a chance – anything less, and Fed rolls.
From 7:00pm:
Novak Djokovic (SRB) [2] v Milos Raonic (CAN) [32]
He might be the most impressive player of the tournament so far, but the question for Milos Raonic is: does it matter when you’re up against Novak Djokovic? Winless in eight attempts against the Serbian, it’s hard to see how Raonic changes that record here even if he is striking the ball particularly well. The harsh truth is that Djokovic just knows how to blunt everything Raonic does offensively, and barring the Serb going mentally walkabout, that means at worst, it’s unlikely to be anything more than a four-setter.
