The Australian Open 2020 has now entered into the deciding stage. Most of the top 5 seeds have been able to make it to the quarter final stage even as Russia’s Daniil Medvedev faced a resurgent Stan Wawrinka and got beaten. We look back at the 7th and 8th day of the Australian Open men’s draw and the players who are now near to lifting the 2020 Norman Brookes championship trophy.
The Big 3 Sail Through
Roger Federer faced the resurgent Hungarian player Marton Fucsovics in the 4th round. The Hungarian raised shockwaves across the Rod Laver arena as he broke Federer and took the 1st set. The 20 time Grand Slam champion however put the reset button on in quick time. He raised his game and the next 3 sets were just a matter of time. Federer won the match in 4 sets and reached yet another quarterfinal at Melbourne Park.
Defending champion and World Number 2 Novak Djokovic was supposed to have a difficult test against talented Argentine Diego Schwartzman. The 7 time champion however was able to bring on the best in himself and produce too much class thus never allowing his opponent an easy game. Djokovic sailed past Schwartzman in 3 comfortable sets as he took yet another step in the defense of his title.
The World Number 1 and top seed this year Rafael Nadal of Spain faced home hero and extremely talented Nick Kyrgios. The Australian was Nadal’s most worthy opponent so far in the tournament. The recent history between these two also made the match more interesting. The Spaniard took the 1st set relatively comfortably but Kyrgios was quick to register a comeback by winning the 2nd set.
The 3rd set went to a tie breaker and the World Number 1 emerged as the better player registering an important win and taking a 2 sets to 1 lead. Nadal then broke Kyrgios early in the 4th set and appeared comfortable while serving for the match. The Australian would however make another comeback as he broke the Nadal serve and took the match to yet another tie breaker. The World Number 1 however held his nerve and won the tie breaker 7 games to 4. Nadal knew he had overcome a very dangerous opponent as he joined Federer and Djokovic in the quarter-finals.
The Challengers
Stan Wawrinka and Daniil Medvedev collided in an extraordinary contest that would go to 5 sets. A resurgent Wawrinka took the 1st set against the 4th seeded Medvedev. The Russian however came back much stronger and convincingly clinched the 2nd and the 3rd set. The 4th set was fought hard and went to the tie breaker. Wawrinka raised his game and won the tie breaker 7 games to 2. The 2014 champion then took apart Medvedev’s game breaking the Russian twice and taking the 5th set and winning it very convincingly. The Swiss thus entered his 1st Australian Open quarter-final since 2017.
The World Number 5 Dominic Thiem put up another great show at Melbourne Park beating the in-form Frenchman Gael Monfils in 3 straight sets. Thiem who has twice been a runner up at the French Open has been improving his hard court game since last 2 years. Already a US Open 2018 quarter-finalist Thiem has now made it to his 1st quarter-final in the Australian Open championships.
The talented German Alexander Zverev who his showing great form at this year’s Australian Open also advanced to the round of 8 in convincing fashion. Zverev defeated rising Russian star Andrey Rublev in 3 sets and thus booked a spot in his 1st ever Australian Open quarter-final. Another player who has been mighty impressive at this year’s Australian Open is the big serving Canadian Milos Raonic. He beat the 2018 Australian Open finalist Marin Cilic in a relatively straightforward manner, without the loss of a set. Raonic thus set up a mouth watering clash in the quarter finals against defending champion Novak Djokovic.
That is all we have for you from the men’s side in the 4th round of Australian Open 2020 matches. We will be back tomorrow as Federer and Djokovic play their quarter-final matches at the Rod Laver arena.