MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - The Latest on the Australian Open (all times local):
11:10 a.m.
No. 9 seed Kiki Bertens has reached the Australian Open’s fourth round for the first time.
Bertens closed out the women’s third round at Melbourne Park by beating Zarina Diyas 6-2, 7-6 (3).
Bertens compiled a 35-19 edge in winners and her serve was broken only once.
The best showing for Bertens at any Grand Slam tournament was a run to the semifinals of the French Open in 2016.
Bertens is the first Dutch woman to reach the round of 16 at the Australian Open since Brenda Schultz-McCarthy in 1996.
Next for Bertens is a match against two-time major champion Garbiñe Muguruza.
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10:40 p.m.
Nick Kyrgios and Karen Khachanov are heading to a fifth set in the last men’s third-round match at the Australian Open.
The winner will face Rafael Nadal.
Kyrgios took the opening two sets, then Khachanov the next two. Kyrgios had two match points along the way.
In another third-round match at night, 2019 U.S. Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev had no trouble beating 96th-ranked Alexei Popyrin, a 20-year-old Australian who is ranked 96th and was dealing with a left hip issue.
Medvedev won 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 and faces three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka next.
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9:15 p.m.
Alexander Zverev is back in the fourth round at the Australian Open after beating 36-year-old Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 6-2, 6-4, and it means another $10,000 to the bush fire relief effort in Australia.
The 22-year-old German player has pledged $10,000 for every match win at the Australian Open, and his entire prize money if he wins the title at Melbourne Park this year. His best run at a major to date is to the quarterfinals at the French Open.
The seventh-seeded Zverev won the last four games after going down a break in the third set against Verdasco, who was contesting his 67th consecutive Grand Slam tournament — the second-longest streak for men behind Feliciano Lopez (72).
Verdasco’s best run at a major was to the semifinals in 2009, when he lost to Rafael Nadal in the second-longest match in Australian Open history that lasted 5 hours and 14 minutes.
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8:35 p.m.
Two-time major winner Garbiñe Muguruza has beaten fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina 6-1, 6-2 to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open.
Muguruza, who won the French Open in 2016 and Wimbledon the following year, took the first set in 23 minutes and conceded just 12 points in seven games.
The third-round has been tough for highly seeded players in the women’s draw, with No. 2 Karolina Pliskova, No. 3 and defending champion Naomi Osaka, No. 6 Belinda Bencic, No. 8 Serena Williams - a 23-time major winner - all unable to reach the second week at Melbourne Park. Unseeded Muguruza started the tournament by losing the first set she played 6-0, but rebounded to win that match 0-6, 6-1, 6-0.
“The first day I didn’t feel well at all, but I never throw in the towel,” she said. “I’m in the fourth round because of a big fight.”
Against Svitolina, a quarterfinalist at the last two Australian Open tournaments and a semifinalist last year at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, Muguruza was dominant.
“Everything went quickly my way - yeah, I’ll take it,” she said. “I played a very good match. I managed to probably disturb her, and take the match to my side.”
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7:40 p.m.
Three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka has moved into the fourth round at Melbourne Park after 19th-seeded American John Isner stopped playing in the second set.
Wawrinka led 6-4, 4-1 when Isner was visited by a trainer at a changeover and then retired from the match.
Wawrinka won the Australian Open in 2014 for his first Grand Slam title. This is his seventh trip to the round of 16 in Melbourne and first since 2017.
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6:15 p.m.
CiCi Bellis’ return to Grand Slam tennis after a two-year absence has ended in a third-round loss to 16th-seeded Elise Mertens at the Australian Open.
Bellis had four operations on her right arm and her ranking dropped to 600 in the time between her trip Down Under in 2018 and her return to Melbourne Park.
The 20-year-old American was told last year that there was a chance she’d never play again. But she took her place in the main draw on a protected ranking and then upset 20th-seeded Karolina Muchova in straight sets in the second round.
It ended in a 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-0 loss to Mertens, a semifinalist in Australia in 2018 who had only dropped five game in her two previous rounds.
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5:40 p.m.
Fifth-seeded Dominic Thiem had a much easier time in his third-round match than his second and beat Taylor Fritz 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-4 to advance to the second week at Melbourne Park.
Fritz double-faulted on match point.
Two days ago the Austrian player needed five sets to beat Australian wild-card entry Alex Bolt.
It is the third time that Thiem has beaten the American at a Grand Slam tournament. He beat Fritz in four sets in the second round of the 2017 U.S. Open and again in the third round at Flushing Meadows a year later.
Thiem will next play Gael Monfils, who earlier beat Ernests Gulbis in straight sets.
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5:15 p.m.
Rafael Nadal has easily advanced to the second week at the Australian Open with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 win over fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta.
The top-ranked Nadal had beaten Carreno Busta in all four of their previous matches, including the quarterfinals of the 2017 French Open.
It is the 47th time that Nadal has reached the fourth round at a Grand Slam tournament, trailing only Roger Federer’s 67 and Novak Djokovic’s 50.
Nadal hasn’t dropped a set in his first three matches at Melbourne Park. He will next play either Nick Kyrgios or Karen Khachanov.
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4:25 p.m.
A day after upsetting defending champion Naomi Osaka in singles, 15-year-old Coco Gauff combined with Caty McNally for a win in the second round of women’s doubles at the Australian Open.
The American teenagers beat eighth-seeded pair Kveta Peschke and Demi Schuurs 6-3, 6-4.
After her win over Osaka, Gauff will play fellow American, 14th-seeded Sofia Kenin, in the fourth round.
Top-ranked Ash Barty’s doubles campaign is over, leaving her to focus on the singles. Barty and Julia Goerges lost 7-5, 6-2 to No. 2-seeded Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos, who won the Australian title in 2018 and were losing finalists last year.
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4 p.m.
Gael Monfils has advanced to the fourth round with a 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-3 win over qualifier Ernests Gulbis.
The 33-year-old Frenchman reached the second week at Melbourne Park for the fourth time, and first since 2017.
Monfils has beaten the No. 256-ranked Gulbis all three times they have met on tour, including in the second round of the 2013 French Open.
Before coming to Melbourne, Monfils represented France at the ATP Cup. He beat Chile’s Cristian Garin in singles but lost to Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the eventual champions.
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3:20 p.m.
Wimbledon champion Simona Halep has beaten Yulia Putintseva 6-1, 6-4 to advance to the fourth round at Melbourne Park.
Halep was the tournament runner-up to Caroline Wozniacki and went on to win the French Open for her first major.
The fourth-seeded Halep will next play either Elise Mertens or CiCi Bellis.
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3 p.m.
Unseeded Iga Swiatek helped continue the exodus of seeded women’s players at the Australian Open by beating No. 19 Donna Vekic 7-5, 6-3.
The 18-year-old Swiatek also beat two top-20 ranked players last year and advanced to the fourth round at the French Open before losing to Simona Halep.
Vekic had beaten five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova in the first round at Melbourne Park.
Swiatek and 15-year-old Coco Gauff are the only teenagers left in the women’s main draw.
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2:25 p.m.
Sixth-seeded Belinda Bencic has lost 6-0, 6-1 to Anett Kontaveit to join other a queue of highly-ranked women exiting from Melbourne Park before the fourth round.
Bencic had beaten former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the second round.
Bencic joins No. 2 Karolina Pliskova, No. 3 and defending champion Naomi Osaka and No. 8 Serena Williams among those who’ve lost in the third round.
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1:45 p.m.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has ended a six-match losing streak against second-seeded Karolina Pliskova with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) win. The Rod Laver Arena match took 2 hours, 25 minutes to complete - the second game lasted 17 minutes and 53 seconds before Pliskova finally held serve after saving six break points and playing through 12 deuces.
The 30th-seeded Pavlyuchenkova, who had taken only one set in six previous matches against Pliskova, will play three-time major champion Angelique Kerber in the fourth round. Kerber earlier beat Camila Giorgi in three sets.
1:20 p.m.
Three-time major champion Angelique Kerber has advanced to the fourth round at the Australian Open with a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-3 win over Camila Giorgi to continue her career winning streak over the Italian player.
Kerber has beaten Giorgi all five times they’ve met, including three previous times Down Under at warm-up tournaments ahead of the Australian Open.
Kerber won the 2016 Australian Open for her first major, then followed that up with the U.S. Open later that year and Wimbledon in 2018.
Giorgi has never advanced past the third round of any major except Wimbledon.
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