\u201cI feel like I always have a chance against anyone. It’s not really \u2026 in my head, I feel like every match is new and different,\u201d said Anisimova.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the fact that I’ve never beaten her before is an extra challenge for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of who wins or loses, Pegula takes this quarterfinal match as a win for the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least one of us will get through, and I think that’s great for American tennis,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pegula comes off a fourth-round victory against Australian Open 2025 winner Madison Keys, who she defeated in straight sets to reach her fourth Australian Open quarterfinal.<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic<\/a>, who only last week celebrated his 100th AO win, returns to Rod Laver Arena well rested and raring to go after a fourth-round walkover when 16th seed Jakub Mensik withdrew from the tournament with an abdominal injury.<\/p>\n Djokovic takes on fifth seed Lorenzo Musetti<\/a> in Wednesday\u2019s quarterfinal, and has won nine of 10 previous meetings with the Italian as he looks to take the next step in his quest to achieve a 25th Grand Slam win.<\/p>\n MORE: AO 2026 men’s singles draw<\/a><\/p>\n Musetti\u2019s sole victory over the Serb was in 2023 at the Monte Carlo Masters. While he acknowledges the difficulties that come with playing against someone whose experience far outweighs his own, the 23-year-old feels he\u2019s in with a chance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying against Novak is always challenging, especially here, which he won many, many, many times,\u201d said Musetti.<\/p>\n \u201cBut of course we know each other pretty well because we played a lot … Hopefully I’ll take my revenge, because last time in Athens we were really, really close. I feel like I have another chance now.\u201d<\/p>\n Should Djokovic defeat Musetti, he will move into his 13th Australian Open semifinal. For Musetti, a quarterfinal win will extend his already career-best campaign in Melbourne, his previous best coming in 2025 when he made the third round.<\/p>\n The night session at Rod Laver Arena welcomes reigning two-time Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner<\/a>, who will confront American Ben Shelton<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sinner holds an 8-1 record against No.8 seed Shelton, including his latest victory in the round robin stage at Nitto ATP Finals in November 2025, and Wednesday\u2019s meeting comes one round earlier than their clash in the semifinals at Melbourne Park last year, which Sinner won in straight sets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI feel like I always have a chance against anyone. It’s not really \u2026 in my head, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-435764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}