In our preview of the men’s competition, this is what we said about De Minaur as our home player to watch:
Perhaps the fastest player ever, De Minaur has matured of late, adding patience, aggression and variety to his game. He’s still hamstrung by a forehand grip that restricts his ability to hit hard while telegraphing some of his shots, but already this year, he’s beaten Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Alexander Zverev.
Righto, Rublev is ready and he’ll serve first; De Minaur wins the first point and the crowd go wild.
Obviously it’s ridiculous how good Andreeva is at 16, but she does still look a little underpowered and it’s not certain that’ll change enough for her to win as much as her skill-level suggests she should. She holds, though, to get on the board at 1-2 in the third. But can she put pressure on the Krejcikova serve?
De Minaur and Rublev are out and knocking up.
On Cain, Andreeva finds herself down 0-40, and though she saves one break point with an ace, she then goes long and Krejcikova leads 1-0 in the third … 20, she consolidates to love.
Nick Kyrgios has been such a great addition to the Eurosport commentary team. He explains that De Minaur, if he’s to win, will have to be aggressive – he’s improved in that aspect recently – and has put on some size. Kyrgios has played Rublev twice as says his second serve “has nothing on in, middle of the box”, so needs attacking, likewise his backhand.
And Andreeva goes long on the backhand; here comes a final set.
Krejcikova is serving at 6-4 3-4 30-40, which is to say she’s got set point having just burned one…
G’day and welcome to the Australian Open 2023, day eight – night session.
We’ve got some pretty serious action in progress, the ludicrously precocious Mrira Andreeva a set up but a break down against Barbora Krejcikova – I can’t wait to see how that one shakes out, and will discuss it in detail presently.
Otherwise, we’ve got what looks like being an absolute banger on Laver, with home favourite and number 10 see Alex de Minaur taking on nuber five seed, Andrey Rublev. De Minaur has really found himself recently, and has never played better than now; Rublev is desperately trying raise his lose-to-the-first-elite-player-he-faces ceiling. But to do that, he must first win tonight…