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Swiatek, Gauff lose at Australian Open

Published:Monday | January 23, 2023 | 6:44 AM
Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan celebrates after defeating Iga Swiatek of Poland during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, on Sunday, January 22, 2023.
AP
Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan celebrates after defeating Iga Swiatek of Poland during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, on Sunday, January 22, 2023.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP):

It all came so seemingly easy for Iga Swiatek last season — two Grand Slam trophies, eight titles overall, a 37-match winning streak, a lengthy stay at No. 1 in the rankings.

Those accomplishments made everyone else expect constant greatness from Swiatek, which she can’t do anything about. They also changed the way she approached big moments, and a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open’s fourth round Sunday made Swiatek wonder whether she needs to reassess her outlook.

“I felt like I took a step back in terms of how I approach these tournaments, and I maybe wanted it a little bit too hard. So I’m going to try to chill out a little bit more,” Swiatek said. “I felt the pressure, and I felt that ‘I don’t want to lose’ instead of ‘I want to win.’”

So there will not be a showdown between Swiatek and No. 7 seed Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park. Instead, it will be Rybakina taking on 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, a 7-5, 6-3 winner against Gauff, with a semi-final berth at stake.

“I kept her under so much pressure,” Ostapenko said.

Add Swiatek’s loss to Week 1 exits by Ons Jabeur, Rafael Nadal, and Casper Ruud, and this Australian Open marks the first Grand Slam tournament in the Open era — which began in 1968 — with the top two women’s seeds and top two men’s seeds all gone before the quarterfinals.

In other women’s action Sunday, No. 3 Jessica Pegula got to the quarterfinals in Australia for the third year in a row by defeating 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova 7-5, 6-2. Pegula now plays 2012-13 Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, who returned to the final eight at Melbourne Park for the first time since 2016 by grabbing the last three games of a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over 87th-ranked Zhu Lin that ended at nearly 2:20 a.m. on Monday in Australia.

Both the 22nd-seeded Rybakina, a 23-year-old who represents Kazakhstan, and the 17th-seeded Ostapenko, a 25-year-old from Latvia, made it this far in Melbourne for the first time.