Novak Djokovic is through to the Australian Open semi-finals once again after withstanding the challenge of Taylor Fritz in a brutal four-set battle. The defending champion raised his game after the American fought back to level the match at a set all, before wrapping up a 7-6 4-6 6-2 6-3 win in three hours and 45 minutes.
The result extended Djokovic’s winning run at Melbourne Park to 33 matches but Fritz threw everything he had at the 10-time champion. Although his record against the 24-time grand slam champion is now 0-9, Fritz pushed Djokovic across two draining and hard-fought opening sets before the 36-year-old ran away with the contest.
Djokovic will take on fourth seed Jannik Sinner in a blockbuster semi-final after the Italian continued his excellent form to defeat Andrey Rublev in straight-sets. Sinner is the only male player not to drop a set this week but had to come from 1-5 down in the second-set tiebreak on his way to claiming an impressive 6-4 7-6 6-3 victory at 1:24am.
Earlier, in the women’s singles, defending champion Aryna Sabalenka set up a mouthwatering semi-final clash with US Open champion Coco Gauff. Sabalenka thrashed Barbora Krejcikova 6-2 6-3 to continue her emphatic form in Melbourne, where she has won 12 matches in a row and has won 10 sets in succession. Her meeting with Gauff will be a rematch of September’s US Open final, which was won by the American Gauff - who outlasted unseeded Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk 7-6 6-7 6-2 in over three hours.
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