As Australian Open 2022 progresses towards its business end, there have been some significant milestones reached, numbers recorded and statistics compiled.
Let's start with world No.1 Ash Barty, who remained impenetrable on serve throughout her straight-sets dismissal of Camila Giorgi before her eventual streak of 63 straight service holds was snapped by Amanda Anisimova in their fourth round match.
MORE: Women's singles results AO 2022
That impressive run dated back to her opening-round win at the Adelaide International over Coco Gauff, and since then Barty has won her last 16 sets to build an unbeaten 8-0 start to 2022.
Other unbeaten players so far in 2022? Melbourne Summer Set champions Simona Halep (8-0) and Rafael Nadal (7-0), plus Jannik Sinner (6-0) and Danielle Collins (3-0). Anisimova was 8-0 before her loss to Barty in round four.
MORE: Men's singles results AO 2022
But those winning streaks are not the best of all players remaining in the draw at AO 2022; that honour belongs to Madison Keys, the Adelaide International 2 champion who has now won her past nine matches thanks to her fourth-round dismissal of Paula Badosa on Sunday.
Until the second round concluded there was an even bigger winning streak still alive; that of Tallon Greikspoor, who had won 29 matches in a row – predominantly at ATP Challenger level – before bowing out to Pablo Carreno Busta.
Another impressive winning streak also came to an end in the third round; Naomi Osaka had won 15 straight matches at Melbourne Park – including at lead-up events moved to the same venue as the AO in 2021 and 2022 – until her defeat to Anisimova. Prior to that 4-6 6-3 7-6[10-5] loss, Osaka had been 23-0 in AO matches in which she had won the first set.
Andy Murray had also compiled a flawless record of his own, which ended at AO 2022; he was 35-0 at Grand Slams when facing players ranked outside the top 100, until his second-round loss to 120th-ranked qualifier Taro Daniel of Japan.
Speaking of qualifiers… Australian Open 2021 was where Botic Van De Zandschulp made his main-draw debut after coming through the qualifying rounds. He also qualified at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open, going on to reach the quarterfinals at the latter.
By the time AO 2022 rolled around, the Dutchman was ranked inside the top 60, gained direct entry to the main draw, and went on to the third round. Before bowing out to No.2 seed Daniil Medvedev, his win-loss record at the majors was a stunning 19-5 dating back to the beginning of 2021.
Consistency at the majors is not only something being demonstrated by Van De Zandschulp. By beating Daria Kasatkina on Saturday night, Iga Swiatek has now reached the second week at six consecutive majors. So too has Matteo Berrettini, thanks to his win over Carlos Alcaraz.
While that's impressive, consider that Rafael Nadal has reached the same stage at 18 consecutive major tournaments.
Belgian Elise Mertens, meanwhile, progressed to the third round at her 16th straight major tournament to line up against Zhang Shuai, who she beat to advance to the second week at Melbourne Park for the third straight year.
Mertens' former doubles partner Aryna Sabalenka, has, somehow, clawed her way through to the fourth round of AO 2022 despite hitting a tournament-high 41 double faults across her first three matches. "Mostly I'm happy that I made only 10 double faults!" she said in celebration during her on-court interview after beating Marketa Vondrousova.
Maxime Cressy is not far behind Sabalenka with 36 double-faults, but the French-born American has been having success in other departments.
In his first two matches, Cressy returned 100 per cent of second serves inside the baseline, and through three rounds is serve-and-volleying 74 per cent of the time – far more than Feliciano Lopez, who is the second-most prolific serve-and-volleyer (38 per cent of points). Cressy has serve-and-volleyed on a whopping 283 points; the next closest is Benoit Paire, who has done so on 59 points.
Finally, Denis Shapovalov's straight-sets upset of world No.3 Alexander Zverev in the fourth round marked his first win over a top-five player since 2017, when he beat Nadal at the Montreal Masters in his breakout tournament.
With the loss, Zverev slips to 4-15 against top-20 opponents at Grand Slam tournaments.