Australian Open: Osaka, Williams and Halep in the quarter-finals | Tennis

The 23-year-old Osaka trailed 5-3 in the last set. You dumped two match points and then came back in good shape. The third Japanese seed will face Hsieh Su Wei of Taiwan in the quarter-finals. She won her match in straight sets against Markita Fondrosova 6-4, 6-2.

“I had to get it on the important points,” said Osaka of match-point survival. “I knew I might be making a lot of unnecessary mistakes, but I couldn’t give short shots of it because it would finish it off.”

Osaka had little opposition to this. She defeated all of her other opponents in straight sets. The three-time Grand Slam winner is walking the ring in Australia for the first time since winning the US Open. She won the Australian Open in 2019, but was surprisingly eliminated in the third round last year by American teenager Coco Gove. Muguruza lost in the final to American Sofia Kenin last year, who was already eliminated in the second round this year.

Williams It took 2 hours and 9 minutes to win the match against Sabalenka. The 39-year-old American, 23-time Grand Slam winner, She will face Romanian Simona Halep in the quarter-finals, ranked second in the world, who beat Poland’s Ija Swiatik 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Williams hopes to finally face Margaret Court in Melbourne, earning 24 Grand Slam titles. Williams last won a Grand Slam in Australia four years ago. Since then she has lost at least four finals.