Maria Timofeeva’s dream run at Australian Open 2024 continued on Friday, as the qualifier added 10th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia to the list of players she has brushed aside in Melbourne.
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After three wins in qualifying to guarantee her Grand Slam debut, Timofeeva made it six in a row with a 7-6(7) 6-3 victory, her first over a top-20 player.
The milestone win means she’s back on Sunday to face unseeded Marta Kostyuk, who had earlier beaten Elina Avanesyan.
MORE: AO 2024 women's singles draw
When she was asked how it felt to be in the second week of a Grand Slam for the first time, the 20-year-old world No.170 reminded on-court interviewer Laura Robson that she’d been going even longer than that.
“It’s actually the third week for me if you count the qualies,” she laughed.
“It feels like a fairytale. With the support of this amazing crowd I feel like anything is possible, and I’m very thankful for them to come out and cheer for me, it really means a lot. This is all a new experience, I’m enjoying every second of it.”
Closing out the match wasn’t without its drama for the youngster, who had recovered from a set and 2-0 down 48 hours earlier to beat former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the second round.
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She led by a set and 5-1 only to watch her Brazilian opponent start to claw her way back before eventually finishing it off on her fifth match point.
“Beatriz was handling the pressure of the match points really well,” admitted Timofeeva, who is the lowest-ranked player to reach the fourth round of the women’s draw since 2017.
“She was playing very solid. I was praying to the tennis Gods to help me.”
Earlier, Kostyuk’s special relationship with the Australian Open strengthened further when she battled past Avanesyan in three sets at 1573 Arena.
The world No.37 from Ukraine was a point away from losing to Belgian Elise Mertens in the previous round, and needed those same battling qualities to survive 2-6 6-4 6-4 in just over two-and-a-half hours.
It is the second time the 21-year-old has reached the fourth round at a major after her run in Paris in 2021.
“It was a very, very mental match today,” said Kostyuk, who won the girls' singles in Melbourne in 2017, and 12 months later reached the third round of the women’s draw as a 15-year-old.
“She was closer than I thought to the win. I really grabbed it out of her hands.”
After her upset over 25th seed Mertens in the second round, the Kyiv native admitted she had to manage her emotions throughout a match she felt she was the favourite to win.
“I wish I played more aggressive today, but the pressure was there because I wasn't an underdog player like against Elise, and I didn't know what to expect. It was not easy.”
There was a chance there would be two qualifiers into the fourth round of the women’s draw when Australian Storm Hunter took on ninth-seeded Czech Barbora Krejcikova under the lights at Rod Laver Arena.
And for a while it looked like the 29-year-old world No.180 from Rockhampton – Rod Laver’s home town – might send the locals into the night happy.
Hunter, who is the doubles world No.1, took the first set and had chances to break late in the second only for the former Roland Garros champion to raise her game just in time.
Krejcikova eventually made sure of her fourth-round spot against teenager Mirra Andreeva with a 4-6 7-5 6-3 win that ended past midnight.