The sixth day of main draw action at Australian Open 2025 ended in disappointment for one of the most popular players on tour, as four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka was forced to end her run at Melbourne Park prematurely.
After leading 4-1 in her first set with Swiss Belinda Bencic, the AO 2019 and 2021 champion was hampered with an abdominal strain, and after eventually losing the opener on a tiebreak 7-3 was forced to retire after 58 minutes.
Both back on tour after recently starting a family, Bencic’s message to her opponent on the TV camera lens said it all: “Get well soon Mama,” the former world No.4 wrote.
The Swiss right-hander’s reward for a great week at her first Grand Slam since becoming a mother last April is a Sunday meeting with No.3 seed Coco Gauff, who won her eighth successive match and 16th set in a row so far this year thanks to a 6-4 6-2 victory over Canadian Leylah Fernandez.
It was much later in the day when fans on site witnessed one of the biggest shocks of the week, with world No.55 Olga Danilovic taking out seventh seed and last year’s US Open runner-up Jessica Pegula 7-6(3) 6-1 under the RLA lights.
The victory moved the big-hitting 23-year-old into the fourth round at a major for the second time, and made her the first woman from her country to make the AO last 16 since 2014.
Her next opponent is the Spanish 11th seed Paula Badosa, who recovered after losing the second set to beat 17th seed Marta Kostyuk 6-4 4-6 6-3.
Two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka had her toughest test of the tournament against young Dane Clara Tauson, hitting back from 3-5 in the first set to advance 7-6(5) 6-4 for her 17th successive AO victory.
That sets up potentially one of the matches of the fourth round against No.14 seed Mirra Andreeva, a semifinalist at Roland-Garros in 2024. Just below them in the draw, Donna Vekic will meet Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova after both won on Friday.
Third-round action in the bottom half of the men’s draw will be remembered for two epic five-setters involving Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Britain’s Jack Draper.
The Spaniard saved two match points in a third-set tiebreak with Czech Jakub Mensik before coming back from two sets down for the second successive match to win 6-2 in the fifth.
And at nearly 1am local time, Draper won his third five-setter of the week to squeeze past Aussie Aleksandar Vukic 10-8 in the deciding tiebreak.
Davidovich Fokina’s route doesn’t get any easier as he’ll be back to play American Tommy Paul, whose third-round victory over Roberto Carballes Baena edged the 27-year-old into the top 10 of the live ATP rankings.
And the same can be said for Draper, who must somehow dust himself down before Sunday’s mammoth task against four-time major winner Carlos Alcaraz.
The world No.3 promised the RLA crowd that if he wins his first AO title next week he will mark the occasion with a tattoo of a kangaroo. That revelation came after a four-set win over Portuguese No.1 Nuno Borges.
Ten-time AO champion Novak Djokovic described his 6-1 6-4 6-4 victory over Czech Tomas Machac as his best performance of the tournament so far, and it’s another youngster from Czechia who stands in his way on Sunday in the shape of recent Brisbane champion Jiri Lehecka, who has won all eight of his matches so far this season.
At the foot of the men’s draw, two-time Grand Slam finalist Alexander Zverev eased past Scot Jacob Fearnley in straight sets 6-3 6-4 6-4, but will expect to have a tougher test on his hands when he plays French No.1 Ugo Humbert in the last 16.
Humbert went through when his friend and fellow Frenchman Arthur Fils retired with an ankle injury early in the fourth set.