Reigning women’s champion Madison Keys will put friendship aside when she takes on US compatriot and sixth seed Jessica Pegula in their fourth-round clash to open the Rod Laver Arena order of play on Monday.
Ninth seed Keys holds a 2-1 record, including a win from their most recent encounter in last year’s Adelaide final, which she claimed en-route to her Grand Slam breakthrough at Melbourne Park a fortnight later.
The two, who share a podcast together with fellow Americans Desirae Krawczyk and Jennifer Brady, are comfortable with their work-life balance.
“We could literally be friends and laughing ’til the moment we walk on the court,” Keys said. “Then in that moment we both want to win and we both are competitors. We're going to do whatever we can to get the W.
“The moment it's over, you're back to being friends. I think those are one of those things that I actually really love about tennis, because it's taught a lot of us how to just manage our friendships and relationships and be able to genuinely love each other and are close and all of that, but also still be really competitive.”
Men’s fifth seed Lorenzo Musetti looks to complete the career set of Grand Slam quarterfinals when he meets familiar foe Taylor Fritz in the second match at Rod Laver Arena.
The Italian prevailed in arguably the highest-quality men’s match of the opening week against in-form Czech Tomas Machac, while Fritz brought the curtain down on crowd favourite and former champion Stan Wawrinka’s final Australian Open campaign in four sets.
Fritz stands to reach his eighth major quarterfinal and his second at Melbourne Park, having succumbed to Novak Djokovic at that stage two years ago.
Having survived a topsy-turvy three-set stoush against Anna Kalinskaya, women’s second seed Iga Swiatek sets her sights on becoming the youngest woman to reach six successive Grand Slam quarterfinals since Serena Williams at Wimbledon 2003.
The Pole meets Australian qualifier Maddison Inglis for the second time, having beaten her in Adelaide five years ago.
The 168th-ranked Inglis will bank on the backing of her home crowd in her maiden Grand Slam fourth round, where she bids to become the first Aussie woman to down a top-two seed at her home Slam since Wendy Turnbull sent Martina Navratilova packing in 1980.
Also on Monday, Novak Djokovic was expected to line-up in a Rod Laver Arena evening blockbuster against Jakub Mensik, only for the rising Czech star to announce the disappointing news that an abdominal injury had forced him to withdraw from AO 2026.
MORE: Mensik withdraws, sending Djokovic into AO 2026 quarterfinals
Neither Djokovic nor Mensik – set for a rematch of their 2025 Miami Masters final, which Mensik won – had conceded a set in their respective third rounds, over Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp and American Ethan Quinn respectively.
In fact, Djokovic hasn’t conceded any sets so far at Australian Open 2026, where he receives a walkover into his 16th quarterfinal at Melbourne Park.
There, he’ll meet the winner of the Musetti-Fritz match, and play for a place in a fifth consecutive Grand Slam semifinal at 38 years of age.
Slotting into the Rod Laver Arena Monday evening session instead is the fourth-round clash between AO 2025 semifinalist Ben Shelton and three-time major finalist Casper Ruud.