MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014\u00a0Carlos Alcaraz\u00a0had to acknowledge that while he won the third-round match, he lost the battle of the drop shots against Corentin Moutet.<\/p>\n
That could be a first for the 22-year-old Spaniard, who grew up relentlessly practicing his drop shots and is now at the Australian Open chasing a career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
The left-handed Moutet mixed things up for Alcaraz in an almost festival Friday vibe on Rod Laver Arena, his blend of drop shots, slice, lobs, tweeners, volleys and even an underarm serve keeping the world’s No. 1-ranked player on his toes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you play someone like Corentin you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to be next,\u201d Alcaraz said after his 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 win over the No. 32 seed. \u201cI had so much fun on the court. As you could see, we both pulled off great shots. Great points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Late in the first set, he said he was already fed up with tracking down drop shots and told his support team \u201cI\u2019m not going to run to get those.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we were in a drop-shot competition,” Alcaraz added, laughing, “but he won!\u201d<\/p>\n
Ever the showman, Alcaraz chimed in with some of his own tricks and tweeners.<\/p>\n
In the first round, Moutet was\u00a0booed by the crowd for his underarm serve\u00a0on match point. For his main arena debut, there was much more love from the crowd.<\/p>\n
After a winning volley late in the match, he celebrated by extravagantly doffing his cap.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz will next play Sunday against No. 19 Tommy Paul, who advanced when Alejandro Davidovich Fokina retired with an injury after dropping the first two sets 6-1, 6-1.<\/p>\n
In night matches, No. 3 Alexander Zverev, the runner-up here last year, advanced 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 over Cameron Norrie and No. 6 Alex de Minaur ousted Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. De Minuar next plays No. 10 Alexander Bublik.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, Coco Gauff advance<\/p>\n
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 3 Coco Gauff had tough routes through the third round.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka said there were times she felt like her head, her hands and her racket were not connected but she still had just enough to squeeze past Anastasia Potapova 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gauff weathered early trouble against Hailey Baptiste before advancing 3-6, 6-0-6-3, cutting down her unforced errors and not serving any double-faults in the second set. She next plays No. 19 Karolina Muchova.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, chasing her third Australian Open title in four years, led 6-5 and 40-0 in her opening set but Potapova saved all three set points to send it to a tiebreaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the second set, Potapova recovered two service breaks and again force a tiebreaker. She then had three set points but Sabalenka rallied when the pressure was on.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe played incredible tennis,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cI was always on the back foot. There are days where you just have to fight \u2014 it was such a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka won the Australian Open title in 2023 and 2024 and was the runner-up a year ago to\u00a0Madison Keys.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She next faces\u00a019-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko, who was one of three teenagers advancing on Day 6.<\/p>\n
The\u00a018-year-old Iva Jovic\u00a0beat No. 7 Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 7-6 (3), after getting some advice from 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave me some very attentive tips for my game,\u201d the American said. \u201cThat was one of the things in the forefront of my mind, because I think when Novak gives you some advice, you follow it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She’ll next play Yulia Putintseva, who shrugged off a vocal crowd to end Turkish player\u00a0Zeynep Sonmez’s run, 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-3.<\/p>\n
No. 8 Mirra Andreeva, who at 18 is into the fourth round in Australia for the third straight year, will next play\u00a0No. 12 Elina Svitolina\u00a0of Ukraine, who beat Diana Shnaider of Russia 7-6 (4), 6-3.<\/p>\n
Daniil Medvedev rallied\u00a0for a 6-7 (5), 4-6, 7-5, 6-0, 6-3 victory over Fabian Marozsan, the fifth time he’s rallied from two-sets down to win a Grand Slam match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 2021 U.S. Open champion next has a\u00a0rematch with Learner Tien,\u00a0who upset him here last year.<\/p>\n
Play will begin an hour earlier\u00a0than initially scheduled Saturday because of high temperatures expected at Melbourne Park. The forecast is for a high of 40 degrees Celsius (104 F).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014\u00a0Carlos Alcaraz\u00a0had to acknowledge that while he won the third-round match, he lost the battle of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-429173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}