MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - The Latest on the Australian Open on Friday (all times local):
10:10 p.m.
Hyeon Chung’s agent says the Korean star was forced to retire from his match against Roger Federer due to painful blisters that had developed on top of one another during his historic run at the Australian Open.
Stuart Duguid says it was “blister under blister under blister.” He says Chung had shaved off the blisters and now his foot is “red raw.” He received injections before the match to see if it would numb the pain, but it didn’t work.
Chung says the pain was so intense, “I can’t walk no more.”
Federer knows how painful blisters can be, saying during his on-court, post-match interview, “I’ve played with blisters in the past a lot and it hurts a lot. And at one point, you realize it’s too much and you just can’t take it anymore and you realize there’s no way you can come back. It’s better to stop.”
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8:40 p.m.
Hyeon Chung has retired from his semifinal match against defending champion Roger Federer at the Australian Open while trailing 1-6, 2-5 on Friday night.
The South Korean player had taken a medical timeout earlier in the second set to receive treatment on his foot. The match was barely an hour old when he quit.
Chung received a smattering of boos after retiring, though the crowd at Rod Laver Arena applauded as he walked off court.
Federer now advances to face Marin Cilic in Sunday’s final for a chance at his 20th Grand Slam title.
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7:35 p.m.
The Australian Open men’s semifinal between defending champion Roger Federer and Hyeon Chung started with the roof closed on Rod Laver Arena because of a late rain shower over Melbourne.
Federer, a 19-time major winner, and Chung, the first Korean to reach the semifinals at a tennis Grand Slam, were playing for a spot in Sunday’s final against No. 6-seeded Marin Cilic.
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6 p.m.
Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France became the first players from their respective countries to lift the Australian Open women’s doubles crown.
Babos and Mladenovic embraced midcourt after beating Russian pair Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina 6-4 6-3 in Friday’s final at Rod Laver Arena.
It’s the first Grand Slam title for Babos, who was a runner-up to Serena and Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2016.
Mladenovic won the 2016 French Open doubles with compatriot Caroline Garcia and the pair were finalists at the US Open later that year.
The 24-year-old players were reunited at Melbourne Park in their first tournament together since the 2015 end-of-season WTA Finals where they fell in the round-robin stage.
Babos and Mladenovic rallied from a 2-4 deficit in the opening set after Babos dropped serve in the fifth game.
And they quickly fell behind in the second set when Mladenovic was broken in the opening game.
But the reignited doubles combination recovered the early deficit in the second set and break Makarova’s serve in the eighth game to set up the victory.
The Australian Open remains the missing link for the Russian pair - they won the 2013 French Open, 2014 U.S. .Open and 2017 Wimbledon and were striving to become only the sixth women’s team to complete all four doubles majors in the Open era.
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