Aryna Sabalenka raced into her sixth successive Grand Slam semifinal on a marathon Day 10 at Melbourne Park. The second seed has dropped just 16 games during her opening five matches.
After being made to wait following a long Rod Laver Arena day session, the 25-year-old world No.2 hammered 21 winners on her way to a 6-2 6-3 win over former Roland Garros champion Barbora Krejcikova.
The serene Sabalenka has now reached at least the last four at every major since the 2022 US Open, and will go up against Coco Gauff in her next match in a repeat of last September’s final at Flushing Meadows.
“I’ve been working so hard, last year, this pre-season, and I think it’s all about hard work,” said Sabalenka, who has now won every one of the eight Grand Slam quarterfinals she has played in.
“Give it all in the practice courts so you’re ready for the matches.”
Earlier, Gauff made it 12 consecutive Grand Slam match wins with a battling victory over young Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk 7-6(6) 6-7(3) 6-2 to move into her first AO semifinal.
The 19-year-old reigning US Open champion was 1-5 down in the opening set, but took a leaf out of her coach Brad Gilbert’s book by ‘winning ugly’ after over three hours on court, Kostyuk's career-best major coming to an end.
“Today was definitely a C-game,” said Gauff, who has won her first 10 matches of the season. “Didn't play my best tennis, but really proud that I was able to get through.”
Both defending champions made it through safely on Tuesday, but Novak Djokovic had to "suffer" for nearly four hours in the warmest part of the day before finally outlasting Taylor Fritz 7-6(3) 4-6 6-2 6-3.
The victory is the Serb’s 33rd consecutive AO match win – a record he now shares with Monica Seles – and puts him into his 48th Grand Slam semifinal, and his 11th at Melbourne Park.
“I'm proud to overcome the kind of challenge and obstacles, and I'm of course pleased to win, but it was not enjoyable at all,” Djokovic admitted afterwards after extending his record over Fritz to 9-0. “It was really, yeah, suffering, a lot of suffering in every aspect.
“You have days like that where you just have to accept it and face the circumstances and try to make the most out of it.”
During the early hours of Wednesday morning, Jannik Sinner put the finishing touches to his quarterfinal victory over Andrey Rublev in the last match at RLA.
Sinner hit back from 1-5 in the second set tiebreak to steal it 7-5 during a crucial phase of the match before finishing off 6-4 7-6(5) 6-3 to move into his second Grand Slam semifinal, and the first in Australia.
On Friday he will meet Djokovic for a place in the final, the player he beat twice in the same day in November last year – once in singles and again in doubles – when he led Italy to a famous Davis Cup semifinal win over the Serbs in Malaga.