MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Top-ranked Iga Swiatek is out of the Australian Open after a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 third-round loss to 50th-ranked Linda Noskova on Saturday, leaving no top 10 players in the bottom half of the women’s draw.
Swiatek is a four-time major winner but has never been past the semifinals at Melbourne Park.
Even so, she was on an 18-match winning streak and expected to beat Noskova, who is making her main draw debut at the tournament.
Swiatek beat 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin and 2022 finalist Danielle Collins in the first two rounds.
But after taking the first set against her 19-year-old Czech opponent, she struggled for rhythm.
After saving breakpoint in the seventh game of the second set, Noskova won 11 of the next 12 points to level the match at one set apiece.
Noskova continued to pound away and got the decisive break in the seventh game of the third set.
Swiatek held at love in the penultimate game and made her rival serve it out, then jumped to 0-30 lead in the 10th game.
But Noskova remained calm, winning the next four points to finish it off quickly. She earned match point with an ace and sealed it when Swiatek sent a forehand long.
Swiatek’s loss leaves No. 12 Zheng Qinwen as the highest-ranked player in the bottom half of the women’s draw and two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka, at No. 18, as the only major winner.
Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, seeded second, U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff, seeded fourth, and No. 9 Barbora Krejcikova are all on the opposite side of the draw.
The men’s draw remains stacked, with No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz and No. 3 Daniil Medvedev having straight-set wins Saturday to reach the fourth round. Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, No. 4 Jannik Sinner and No. 5 Andrey Rublev already reached the last 16 on the top half of the draw.
Medvedev beat Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 and finished 2 1/2 hours before midnight local time. His second-round match finished close to 4 a.m. Friday.
He will next play Nuno Borges, who upset No. 13 Grigor Dimitrov 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (6).
Wimbledon champion Alcaraz was leading 6-1, 6-1, 1-0 when the 18-year-old Shang Juncheng retired in the third set, ending the match in 66 minutes.
“It’s not the way you want to move on,” said the 20-year-old Alcaraz, who missed the 2023 Australian Open because of injury. “Last year I was watching the matches from my couch, wishing to be in the second week.”
Alcaraz will play Miomir Kecmanovic, who saved two match points before upsetting 2023 semifinalist Tommy Paul 6-4, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6 (7), 6-0.
Paul led by two sets to one on Margaret Court Arena and had match points in the fourth, but Kecmanovic leveled and then raced through the deciding set for victory.
No. 9 Hubert Hurkacz is into the fourth round in back-to-back years after beating No. 21 Ugo Humbert 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (4), 6-3. He will next play French wildcard entry Arthur Cazaux, who beat 28th-ranked Tallon Griekspoor 6-3, 6-3, 6-1.
French Open finalist and No. 11 seed Casper Ruud lost 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-4, 6-3 to No. 19 Cam Norrie.
Azarenka won back-to-back women’s titles here in 2012 and ’13. On Saturday, she took out 2017 French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko 6-1, 7-5 to make the last 16 here for the seventh time.
She trailed 5-2 in the second before winning five straight games, saving two breakpoints with aces in the last game before serving it out.
“I’m just ready to give whatever it takes. I’m going to stay out here as long as it needs to be,” Azarenka said. “I love the challenge. It makes me excited. It brings out the best in me.”
Azarenka’s next opponent will be Ukrainian qualifier Dayana Yastremska, who equaled her best Grand Slam performance with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 win over 27th-ranked Emma Navarro.
Yastremska was coming off first-round exits in her previous seven Grand Slam appearances and hadn’t been to the second week of a major since reaching the round of 16 at Wimbledon in 2019.
She will next play Oceane Dodin, who beat Clara Burel 6-2, 6-4 in a match between two French women.
Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion and a runner-up at Roland Garros the following year, was ousted in a 6-7 (8), 6-1, 6-4 loss to Anna Kalinskaya.
No. 26 Jasmine Paolini advanced 7-6 (1), 6-4 over Anna Blinkova, who was coming off a big upset win over 2023 finalist Elena Rybakina in the longest tiebreaker in women’s Grand Slam history.
In the Rod Laver Arena opener, Zheng, a U.S. Open quarterfinalist last year, edged fellow Chinese player Wang Yafan 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (8) to reach the fourth round in Australia for the first time.
Zheng told the crowd she was motivated by watching Li Na win the Australian Open title in 2014 and was surprised to see later that her tennis inspiration was on site to watch the match.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis