Australian Open 2024 Results: Instant Reactions to Friday's Winners and Losers
Friday was a far less chaotic day at the 2024 Australian Open than Thursday.
The majority of the title contenders in action at Melbourne Park cruised to straight-set victories.
Novak Djokovic earned his first three-set win of the tournament as part of that collection of results.
Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas all experienced little trouble on the Australian hard courts.
All eight men who advanced to the fourth round on Friday were seeded players. That sets up four potentially exciting matchups on Sunday.
Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff continued to cruise in the bottom half of the women's singles draw.
The Nos. 2 and 4 seeds are on a collision course to face each other in the semifinals. Only one other seeded player, No. 9 seed Barbora Krejcikova, is still alive in that part of the draw due to upsets from the first and second rounds.
Friday Results
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Men's Singles
No. 1 Novak Djokovic def. No. 30 Tomas Etcheverry, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (2)
No. 4 Jannik Sinner def. No. 26 Sebastian Baez, 6-0, 6-1, 6-3
No. 5 Andrey Rublev def. No. 29 Sebastian Korda, 6-2, 7-6 (6), 6-4
No. 7 Stefanos Tsitsipas def. Luca Van Assche, 6-3, 6-0, 6-4
No. 10 Alex De Minaur def. Flavio Cobolli, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1
No. 12 Taylor Fritz def. Fabian Marozsan, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2
No. 15 Karen Khachanov def. Tomas Machac, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 7-6 (5)
No. 20 Adrian Mannarino def. No. 16 Ben Shelton, 7-6 (4), 1-6, 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-4
Women's Singles
No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka def. No. 28 Lesia Tsurenko, 6-0, 6-0
No. 4 Coco Gauff def. Alycia Parks, 6-0, 6-2
No. 9 Barbora Krejcikova def. Storm Hunter, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3
Maria Timofeeva def. No. 10 Beatriz Haddad Maia, 7-6 (7), 6-3
Top Ranked Men Cruise into Fourth Round
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Djokovic, Sinner, Rublev and Tsitsipas all picked up straight-set victories on Friday.
Their performances established a clear dominance in the top half of the men's singles draw and it reversed course from a chaotic Thursday in which 15 matches went the distance.
Djokovic earned his first straight-set win of the tournament over Tomas Etcheverry. The third set between the top seed and the 30th-seeded Chilean was one of two tiebreaks the quartet of top 10 seeds had to deal with on Friday.
Rublev, the No. 5 seed, eliminated American Sebastian Korda. The toughest part of that match was a second-set tiebreak that Rublev won.
Sinner and Tsitispas came nowhere close to tiebreaks in their matches. The Nos. 4 and 7 seeds let one set between them last 10 or more games.
No. 10 seed Alex De Minaur also flexed his dominance against Flavio Cobolli in a straight-set win to set up a fourth-round battle with Rublev.
Rublev is the most vulnerable of the four most notable players in the top half because he has to play De Minaur, a top 10 seed with the home crowd behind him. De Minaur also holds a 3-2 advantage in the head-to-head history versus Rublev.
Djokovic, Sinner and Tsitsipas all face ranked foes in the fourth round as well, but they are expected to win against Adrian Mannarino, Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachanov.
Fritz is the one of three American men left in the men's singles draw. He has a 1-3 career record against Tsitsipas.
Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka Surge into Fourth Round
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The bottom half of the women's singles draw is all about the potential semifinal clash between Gauff and Sabalenka.
The pair of top-four seeds confirmed on Friday that it will be difficult for anyone to beat them at their best in Melbourne.
Sabalenka swept her match with Lesia Tsurenko. The pair of 6-0 set victories made it six sets in a row won by at least three games for the No. 2 seed.
Gauff only lost two games in her matchup with fellow American Alycia Parks.
Five of Gauff's six set wins in Melbourne have also been by three or more games.
The path to a semifinal battle cleared even more on Friday, as 10th-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia fell in straight sets.
Krejcikova, who would face Sabalenka in the quarterfinals, is the only seeded player left behind Gauff and Sabalenka in the bottom half of the draw.
There are still some dangerous players left, including 16-year-old phenom Mirra Andreeva, but right now there is a clear gap between Sabalenka, Gauff and the rest of the contenders in that part of the bracket.
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