It was truly a day to remember at Australian Open 2024 on Thursday, thriller after thriller entertaining fans onsite and around the world from the first ball to last.
‘Twenty-all’ isn’t a scoreline you often hear from a chair umpire, but that’s where Elena Rybakina and Anna Blinkova found themselves moments before the conclusion of one of the most memorable deciding tiebreaks of all-time, and – at 42 points – the longest tiebreak in a singles match in Grand Slam history.
Blinkova missed two match points serving for victory against the world No.3 at 5-4 in the deciding set, before the tennis world sat glued to a shootout that went on and on.
Back and forth it went, a capacity crowd spellbound by what they were witnessing. Blinkova missed another seven match points before finally converting her 10th to win it 22-20 in a shootout that had lasted over half an hour. She saved six match points in the process.
"This day I will remember for the rest of my life,” said the world No.57 after securing the biggest win of her career. “I will never forget it.”
That memorable contest was just one of a handful that went to the wire on Day 5.
First it was the world No.1 Iga Swiatek who narrowly escaped becoming the biggest casualty of the week so far when she scrambled past American Danielle Collins in a three-set thriller.
The four-time Grand Slam champion from Poland recovered from 1-4 and then 2-4, 0-40 in the third set to outlast the Australian Open 2022 runner-up 6-4 in the decider after 3 hours and 14 minutes of power tennis.
“Honestly, I was in the airport already,” was Swiatek’s honest opinion of how close she came to crashing out.
Collins surprised everyone in her post-match press conference by announcing that this season will be her last on tour, and so that Rod Laver Arena marathon is the last singles match she will ever play at Melbourne Park.
The day session drama inside RLA didn’t stop there. Next it was world No.2 Carlos Alcaraz who was pushed to the limit by Lorenzo Sonego.
The Italian almost forced a deciding set before Alcaraz finished it 6-4 6-7(3) 6-3 7-6(3) in a duel that will be remembered for another potential shot of the tournament – a running backhand pass around the net post from the Spaniard.
Sixth seed Alexander Zverev and 11th seed Casper Ruud both won deciding fifth-set tiebreaks against Slovak qualifier Lukas Klein and Aussie Max Purcell respectively.
Britain’s Cameron Norrie looked on his way out only to fight back from two sets to love down against another qualifier, Italy’s Giulio Zeppieri, 6-4 in the fifth set.
And, like Rybakina, another two top 10 stars were bundled out.
American Jessica Pegula was comfortably beaten 6-4 6-2 by French world No.51 Clara Burel, a former girls runner-up at Melbourne Park.
Young Danish eighth seed Holger Rune suffered a four-set defeat to French 21-year-old Arthur Cazaux, the world No.122 moving into the third round at a major for the first time.
Other seeds to disappear on Thursday were Daria Kastakina, who lost to former US Open champion Sloane Stephens, and in the men’s draw Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Jiri Lehecka and Jan Lennard Struff.