MELBOURNE
\nNovak Djokovic surged into an Australian Open quarter-final clash against Carlos Alcaraz with a dominant victory on Sunday while women\u2019s world number one Aryna Sabalenka was a ruthless winner.
\nDouble defending champion Sabalenka is on a collision course with in-form world number three Coco Gauff in the semi-finals in Melbourne if both win in the last eight.
\nOn the hottest day of the tournament so far with temperatures hitting 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit), Alcaraz went through when Britain\u2019s Jack Draper retired injured.
\nThe 37-year-old Djokovic then kept up his end of the bargain with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7\/4) win over Czech 24th seed Jiri Lehecka in the prime-time match on Rod Laver Arena.
\nDjokovic is anticipating a \u201cbig battle\u201d against Alcaraz on Tuesday.
\n\u201cThe kind of matches that I played against him remind me of my match-ups versus (Rafael) Nadal in terms of the intensity and the energy on the court,\u201d he said.
\nDjokovic appears to be growing into the tournament in an ominous sign for his rivals, as he pursues a record-extending 11th Melbourne crown and historic 25th Grand Slam title. He dropped a set in each of his opening two matches but has won the previous two in straight sets.
\nDjokovic and Alcaraz have played each other seven times with the Serb leading 4-3, including victory in their last clash in the Paris Olympics final.
\nBut they have never played at Melbourne Park, where Djokovic has achieved his greatest success.
\n\u201cWhen we are seeing him playing, he seems like he\u2019s young again\u2026 it\u2019s unbelievable. He\u2019s in a really good shape,\u201d said Alcaraz, who has vowed to get a kangaroo tattoo if he wins the Australian Open for the first time.
\nThe 21-year-old Spaniard, who has never gone beyond the quarter-finals in Melbourne, was leading 7-5, 6-1 when Draper pulled the plug. Draper had come through all three of his previous matches in five sets, and all from 2-1 down, and it appeared to have taken its toll.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not the way I wanted to win, but obviously I\u2019m happy to play another quarter-final here in Australia,\u201d said Alcaraz.
\nThe 23-year-old Draper, whose rise has been held back by issues with his body, said his hip injury had been a \u201cticking time bomb\u201d and he had \u201cmultiple areas really in pain\u201d.
\nAmerican 12th seed Tommy Paul destroyed Spain\u2019s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina for the loss of just three games as he bids to match or better his semi-final appearance from 2023.
\nPaul will meet German second seed Alexander Zverev, who survived a mid-match wobble to oust France\u2019s Ugo Humbert.
\nZverev, who is zeroing in on a maiden Grand Slam title, won 6-1, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.
\nSabalenka blew away Russian 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva 6-1, 6-2 in a chilling warning to sweep into the quarter-finals.
\nThe Belarusian was out on a roasting centre court for only 62 minutes before registering an 18th consecutive win at Melbourne Park.
\n\u201cI\u2019m super happy to get through this difficult match in straight sets,\u201d said Sabalenka, who faces Russian 27th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova next.
\nSabalenka struggled with her serve in colder conditions during the first week, but was untouchable as the mercury soared.
\n\u201cThe ball was flying like a rocket,\u201d said Sabalenka.
\nA dangerous Gauff faces Spain\u2019s 11th seed Paula Badosa after the American fought back to beat Belinda Bencic 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.
\nGauff dropped a set for the first time in 2025 but extended her unbeaten streak to 13 matches going back to last year\u2019s WTA Tour Finals.
\n\u201cTwo out of three sets at this stage of my career is not that physically hard for me,\u201d said the 20-year-old Gauff, who is chasing a first Melbourne title.
\n\u201cThe off-season I just put in so much work physically so I\u2019m not worried at all about recovering emotionally or mentally.\u201d
\nBadosa declared she \u201cloves\u201d Gauff \u2014 but said that will not prevent her looking for \u201crevenge\u201d.
\nThe pair have a 3-3 head-to-head record but Gauff won both their meetings in 2024, with each going to three sets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE Novak Djokovic surged into an Australian Open quarter-final clash against Carlos Alcaraz with a dominant victory on Sunday while women\u2019s world number one Aryna Sabalenka was a ruthless winner. Double defending champion Sabalenka is on a collision course with in-form world number three Coco Gauff in the semi-finals in Melbourne if both win in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":75878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75879,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75860\/revisions\/75879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}