Key posts
Latest scores and results
Here is a look at today’s key matches.
It’s down to the final eight men and women with a list of title contenders varying from fresh faces to record chasers.
Who will be crowned the Australian 2024 champions?
Chris Stubbs and Mark Petchey look ahead to the quarter-finals:
If you noticed the striking resemblance between the 15-year-old slugging it out in the juniors at Melbourne Park on Sunday and his famous Dad, Lleyton, you might be wondering what’s next for Cruz Hewitt.
The plan is for Cruz to play in the bigger ITF junior tournaments in a bid to improve his junior ranking.
“And then he’ll play some Futures, which is the lowest level of ATP tournaments as well, so he’ll try a mixture of both of those and really right now it’s just about developing your game,” explained the senior Hewitt in an interview with Wide World of Sports’ The Morning Serve.
Cruz and Leyton Hewitt, like father, like son.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen; Getty
“[Cruz] only just turned 15 last month, so he’s still very young and very immature out there but to go through those experiences and I guess the nerves too of playing on a main showcourt at a grand slam is pretty awesome,” Hewitt added.
“The Australian crowd was unbelievable with him as well, everyone getting out there and supporting him. So it was a lot of fun I think for [wife] Bec and myself in the crowd, but he really enjoyed it, and he’s still got plenty of time.”
That didn’t take long for Heath Davidson.
He’s wrapped up his first-round match against Tomas Masaryk in just over an hour.
He would have wrapped it up in less time than that but for a late fightback from his Slovakian opponent.
Heath Davidson in action at Melbourne Park earlier this month.Credit: Getty Images
Davidson saved three break points in the final game of the match, and then eventually one more, before closing it out.
As a reminder, Davidson was broken by Masaryk in the first game of the second set. He was untouchable from there!
Final score 6-2, 6-1.
Australia’s Heath Davidson has already taken the first set in his quad wheelchair singles match against Slovakia’s Tomas Masaryk.
Davidson took the first set 6-2, his opponent broke the Australian in the first game of the second set.
But the Aussie immediately broke back. We are back on serve in the second set.
Davidson hit 15 winners to Masaryk’s six in the first set, and the Aussie’s fastest serve speed (122km/h) was well up on Masaryk’s 105.
Davidson is ranked No.5 in the world and has reached the semi-finals here on four occasions. He has won the doubles here four times.
Footage of a young Jannik Sinner on the ski slopes helped convince John Millman the Italian has what it takes to win a grand slam.
Check it out below:
Turning to Kia Arena, where Adam Hills and Dylan Alcott are playing in a celebrity exhibition match with Archie Graham, Alicia Molik, Daria Saville and Izzy Cairns.
During the match comedian Hills said they were “absolutely over the moon” about the number of people attending the match.
He urged people in the stands to attend other All-Abilities matches, which would be running throughout the day.
He and Dylan Alcott, former wheelchair tennis paralympian and Australian of the Year, partnered up for a game.
“We’ve got one working leg between us,” Alcott joked.
You may remember yesterday that Taylor Fritz’s influencer girlfriend, Morgan Riddle, ate a mouthful of Vegemite on Instagram live.
Riddle declared she would eat a jar of the spread if Fritz overcame Greek star and last year’s finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas. Fritz won 7-6 (7-3), 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 and was presented with a big tub of Australia’s finest during the post-match interview.
Taylor Fritz looks on as Morgan Riddle reacts to eating a spoonful of Vegemite.Credit: Twitter
And in her video yesterday, she ate the spread straight off the spoon and then spat it out – off camera.
“That was disgusting. If anyone had to eat a whole jar of that, nope, nope, nope,” she said.
But the story doesn’t end there, with Vegemite responding to her decision to eat the spread without any butter, toast or a biscuit.
“If you’re going to do it, at least do it right. Australia, thoughts?” the brand posted on social media.
They even put a call-out to her partner, urging him to pass on the message.
Our reporter Angus Dalton found out just what extreme heat can do to the human body, when he went into a climate chamber to experience what Australian Open contenders go through on the court.
He went into the Thermal Ergonomics Laboratory, a temperature-controlled space humidified by a water boiler.
Reporter Angus Dalton spent time in a climate chamber.Credit: Photo: Brook Mitchel; Artwork: Marija Ercegovac
Scientists at the University of Sydney lab – who work with Tennis Australia on the Australian Open’s heat regulations – can recreate extraordinary conditions in this room, including the kind of 35-degree “wet bulb” temperatures that can kill (wet bulb measurements combine heat and humidity, and are typically much lower than the ambient air temperature).
Here’s what he writes about his experience in the lab:
I’m not on a blue hardcourt under a baking sun in front of 14,000 people, I’m in a very hot room. The door and windows are shut. Lamps bathe the space in a watermelon light. I saunter into the centre. So far, no sweat. But hang on, now my breathing feels … thick.”
Find out more about heat stress here.
Last night at the tennis was a bagel special.
Carlos Alcaraz made light work of Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic in the fourth round, finishing the third set 6-0. Not to be outdone, China’s Qinwen Zheng began her demolition of France’s Oceane Dodin, also 6-0.
No tennis player likes a bagel. At least not on court.Credit: iStock
The term bagels featured in many headlines around the world, and as we know losing a set to love is known differently in some languages, here’s a quick primer while we wait for the action to begin on Rod Laver Arena.
The Spaniards and the Serbs call a double bagel a bicycle.
In France, a player on the receiving end of a double bagel is also known to have “gone home by bike”.
In France, the term a player on the receiving end of a double bagel is also known to have “gone home by bike”.Credit: Trevor Collens
But in Serbia, a single bagel is a potato, and in France a bubble. In Germany, a double bagel is known as eyeglasses.
A single bagel in India is known as an egg, while in Czechia and Slovakia, it’s a canary. Back on the cycling theme, in Portugal it’s known as a tyre.
Let’s hope your favourite players are not the recipients of any bagels tonight!
Russian superstar Andrey Rublev is due on Rod Laver Arena tonight for a quarter-finals clash with Italian Jannik Sinner.
Earlier, he broke Aussies’ hearts when he disposed of Alex de Minaur in a five-set thriller in the fourth round of the Open. We couldn’t help but notice his fashion, however.
He looked striking in a two-tone blue outfit, and it wasn’t from the range of Nike, his previous sponsor.
It’s his own fashion brand, Rublo, whose logo is a pair of stylised angel wings.
Andrey Rublev wearing his label, Rublo. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
According to Rublev’s website, Rublo was created to “drive awareness around equality and kindness” with the hope of “making our world a better place”.
Rublev has spoken of his mental health struggles in the past and when launching the clothing brand last year, he said on social media:
I know I’m depressive and always have been thinking about life and death for too much, but before my days will end I will keep fighting for what I believe, what I love and who I love …
We would like to share with you something that can be bigger than just a brand, something that can help people, planet. Something that will be a symbol of hope and kindness.”