Maria Timofeeva reached the 1/8 finals in her first Grand Slam tournament

On the sixth day of the Australian Open, another interesting match took place with the participation of players from Russia. Grand Slam debutant Maria Timofeeva, who made her way into the main draw through qualification, broke the resistance of the 12th racket of the world, Brazilian Beatrice Addad Maia, in the 1/16 finals, and 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva saved an almost hopeless meeting with Frenchwoman Diane Parry at the same stage. which won 5:1 in the third game and had a match point in the eighth game. In the men’s half of the tournament, last year’s semi-finalist Karen Khachanov, who will now play one of the favorites, Italian Jannik Sinner, and Andrei Rublev, who faced Australian Alex De Minaur, entered the fourth round.

Maria Timofeeva, the granddaughter of the People’s Artist of Russia, the famous pianist Lyubov Timofeeva, who currently stands in only 170th place in the world classification, is not inclined to put off important matters for later. Six months ago, she became the author of perhaps the main sensation of the entire last season – she took the title at her very first Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournament in Budapest, and even got into the main draw as a lucky loser, that is, a tennis player who lost in the qualifying final. Now, having passed the qualifying stage at the Australian Open, the 20-year-old Grand Slam debutante has reached the fourth round. This happened after three well-known opponents could not resist her onslaught at once – the most experienced Frenchwoman Alize Cornet, who was at one time considered one of the most inconvenient rivals for the famous Serena Williams, former world number one Danish Caroline Wozniacki, champion of the Australian Open five years ago, and now also the semi-finalist of last year’s Roland Garros, Brazilian Beatrice Addad Maia, who is in her prime, and ranks 12th in the WTA rankings.

At first it seemed that Timofeeva, with her short stature, would be extremely difficult to oppose with anything sensible to the extremely aggressive tennis that Addad Maya likes to play.

In the first three games, the Russian scored only three points. However, she gradually adapted to her opponent’s style and began to chase down difficult balls and counter-attack sharply, often using superb backhands down the line. It was then that the main drawback of the talented Brazilian surfaced, which had long been preventing her from firmly gaining a foothold in the top ten – insufficient consistency in the draws. The consequence of this was the balance that had been established by the beginning of the seventh game, after which the opponents held their serve and proceeded to the tiebreaker. At first, Addad Maya dominated there, but Timofeeva again successfully coped with the role of catching up: with the score 6:7, she won back a set point and took the next three points.

Such a denouement of the game temporarily demoralized the Brazilian and at the same time inspired the Russian tennis player, who took the lead in the second set – 5:1. Timofeeva failed to solve her problem right away. In the seventh and eighth games, she missed one match point each, in the ninth – two more, but in the end she achieved her goal – she won the first match against an opponent from the top fifty in the world ranking, sharply approached the top 100, where she had never been before, and , of course, made it to the 1/8 finals. There Timofeeva will meet with Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, who won her third three-set match in a row, in this case with Russian Elina Avanesyan.

Another representative of Russia, 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva, successfully passed the third round, who, perhaps for the first time at major tournaments, demonstrated not only skill, but also impressive fortitude.

French tennis player Diane Parry led in the third set – 5:1, and in the eighth game Andreeva had a set point. Nevertheless, the youngest tennis player from the top 100 still managed to turn the tide of the game and reserve a super tiebreaker. Next, as expected, she will face a match with Czech Barbora Krejcikova, the 2021 Roland Garros champion, who lost to Andreeva last season on the grass at Wimbledon and on the hard court in Beijing.

On the men’s side, Andrey Rublev, who beat the American Sebastian Korda in three sets, and Karen Khachanov, who defeated the Czech Tomas Machac, took further steps towards each other. True, it is too early to talk about the Russian quarterfinals in Melbourne. The fact is that Khachanov will now be opposed by the Italian Jannik Sinner, who is moving very confidently through the bracket and has lost his serve only once in three matches. It won’t be much easier for Rublev, who is playing with Alex De Minaur, who closes the top ten. The Australian will have a hot crowd on his side, and he won three out of five personal meetings with the Russian.

Evgeniy Fedyakov