Australian Open: Djokovic moved into the semi-finals after winning four sets

The world number one became the first player to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Open on Tuesday with a 7:6 (3), 4: 6, 6: 2, 6: 3 victory over number twelve seeded American Taylor Fritz. Either the South Tyrolean Jannik Sinner or the Russian Andrej Rublew are waiting for the ten-time Melbourne champion. The first women’s semi-finalist is US Open winner Coco Gauff.

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Djokovic has an impressive series to defend, as he has also won the Australian Open every time he has reached the semi-finals. The defending champion celebrated his 33rd match win in a row against Fritz. After 3:45 hours, the 36-year-old Serb scored his first match point. This meant that Djokovic’s ninth meeting with the ten-year-younger man, who was ranked twelfth, ended victoriously.

The first set was extremely competitive, Fritz had to fend off three break points in the first game, which lasted over 16 minutes. When the score was 6:5, the American missed two break and set points. In the tiebreak, Djokovic clearly had the better end with 7:3, the set lasted almost as long as an entire football match. Fritz didn’t let this throw him off course and laid the foundation for winning the second round with an early break to make it 1-0.

In the 3rd set, Djokovic took his opponent’s serve for the first time to make it 2-0, thus leading to the preliminary decision. In the fourth set he managed a break to make it 4:2 and, after an immediate rebreak, another one to make it 5:3. “I suffered a lot in the first two sets – also because of the high quality of Taylor. He served well and played the balls close to the lines. I was on the defensive in most of the rallies and had trouble with the timing. Plus the heat. It was physically and mentally challenging,” said the Grand Slam record winner in an interview on the court at the Rod Laver Arena.

Gauff defeats Kostyuk

Gauff had to fight hard against the Ukrainian Marta Kostjuk before the 7:6(6),6:7(3),6:2 victory was in the bag. The 19-year-old American only scored her first match point after 3:08 hours. “I’m very proud of the fact that I left everything on the pitch. It’s always difficult against Marta,” said Gauff. Kostjuk started furiously in the first Grand Slam quarterfinal of her career and quickly moved away to 5-1. But Gauff, who had already won the WTA tournament in Auckland before the Australian Open, fought back. The American fended off two set points and won the first round in the tiebreak.

Neither of them gave each other anything in the second set. With the score at 5:4, Gauff already served to win the match. But Kostjuk fought back and equalized the set in the tiebreak. After that, the Ukrainian ran out of strength, Gauff quickly pulled away in the deciding set and remains unbeaten in 2024. The world number four will now face either defending champion Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus or Czech Barbora Krejcikova on Thursday.