Australian Open 2016 Schedule: Replay TV Coverage, Live Stream for Sunday's Draw
Heading into the early draw Sunday at the Australian Open, there was a headlining matchup in the men’s draw that was expected to be an instant classic. People earmarked a battle between the No. 7 seed Kei Nishikori and the No. 9 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as one of the best early matches of a tournament defined by upsets.
Matt Cronin of TennisReporters.net thought it was going to be one of the highlights of the fourth-round draw:
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Little did he, or anyone, know that the matchup between two top-10 seeds would turn into a massive beatdown that felt like it was over as soon as it started. Nishikori claimed the first set 6-4 before absolutely clobbering Tsonga 6-2, 6-4, respectively, in the final two sets to sweep the Frenchman.
As both David Law of BBC and Howard Bryant of ESPN The Magazine pointed out, the final box score doesn’t even truly do justice to the way Nishikori dispatched his opponent:
Replay Info for Sunday’s Draw (Day 7, 4th Round)
Watch: ESPN (U.S. only)
Saturday Replay Coverage: Tennis Channel from 7 a.m. ET to 9 a.m. ET and 1 p.m. ET to 6 p.m. ET; ESPN2 from 9 a.m. ET to 12 p.m. ET
Full Schedule: AusOpen.com
Sharapova and Williams Advance
Maria Sharapova doesn’t quite have the status within the tennis world that she once did, but in terms of recognizable stars in the women’s tennis world to the casual fan, she is probably second only to Serena Williams.
Heading into the tournament as the No. 5 seed, Sharapova was hoping to prove critics wrong and improve on her runner-up performance from the year before. Through the first three rounds, it looked like she was on track, only losing one set, but Belinda Bencic was the biggest challenge she has faced in Australia so far.
The opening set wasn’t the easiest for Sharapova in her long and successful career, with the Russian winning 7-5, but according to Bryant, even though the score was close, it appeared the favorite was in control on the court:
Bencic kept things close throughout the second set despite Sharapova thoroughly outplaying her. But even if she was in both sets, she was never in the match. Sharapova controlled from the opening serve and swept the No. 12 seed 7-5, 7-5.
Following the match, Sharapova noted that the future of women’s tennis is bright with youngsters like Bencic there to take up the mantle, but the future is still a long way off, according to Christopher Clarey of the New York Times:
While Sharapova will be looking to improve on her result from last year, she will have to go through arguably the most dominant athlete of this generation in Williams to do so.
Having already comfortably dispatched each of her first three opponents in the Australian Open, Williams advanced to the fourth round against Russian Margarita Gasparyan, and few expected anything different from the game’s biggest star.
Dominating throughout the match, Williams won 6-2, 6-1 to advance to the quarterfinals, with Clarey noting how her presence alone is enough to beat certain players:
Coming off the win, the No. 1 seed has only dropped seven games in her last three matches and is reaching peak form as the tournament’s finale draws closer.
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