To reach the quarterfinals of Australian Open

MELBOURNE — Aryna Sabalenka brushed aside teenager Mirra Andreeva and Coco Gauff rallied past Belinda Bencic to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and extend winning streaks as Melbourne Park stifled in the summer heat on Sunday.

Double defending champion Sabalenka’s 6-1, 6-2 demolition of Andreeva took her run of consecutive victories at Melbourne Park to 18 matches, while Gauff made it nine wins in a row in 2025 by seeing off the Swiss scourge of major champions 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.

Tommy Paul was the first man to book his spot in the last eight with a 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 win over Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who looked beaten up after back-to-back five-setters in the last two rounds.

“What he did is unreal, coming back from two sets down twice is amazing,” said Paul, one of four Americans in the fourth round.

“He deserves a round of applause and respect from me for staying out here today.”

Briton Jack Draper played three five-set epics in earlier rounds and he retired while losing 7-5, 6-1 to third seed Carlos Alcaraz.

Sabalenka was stunned in three sets by 17-year-old Andreeva in the quarterfinals of last year’s French Open but it was not even close on Sunday morning as the world number one wrapped up the victory in just 62 minutes.

“I’m super happy to get this win,” Sabalenka told reporters. “Mirra is so young, so mature, such a great player. She can play really great tennis.”

The Belarusian had struggled with her serve in her third-round contest and said she was much happier playing in the hotter temperatures on Rod Laver Arena on Sunday.

“I’m super happy with my level today and I hope the conditions stay the same for the rest of the tournament,” she added.

Sabalenka will next face Russian veteran Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who ran away with a 7-6(0), 6-0 victory over Donna Vekic after the Croatian 18^th seed injured her knee before the first-set tiebreak.

“That’s not the way you want the match to finish,” the 33-year-old said. “It was such a good, tight match before the tiebreaker.”

Third seed Gauff lost her first set of the year to open her contest against Bencic, who had won seven of her last eight meetings with major champions.

Ranked a lowly 294^th on her return to the tour after having a daughter, the 27-year-old Swiss was put on the back foot when the 2023 US Open champion came out firing in the second set.

Gauff, a semifinalist here last year, continued to apply pressure and Bencic crumbled after two net cords conspired against her at 2-1 down in the third.

“Maybe a couple of years ago, if I lost the first set I might lose the match and I remember my dad said, ‘we’ve got to toughen you up,’” said 20-year-old Gauff.

“I was just trying to put myself in the position where I could leave the court and feel proud of myself.”

Gauff will face Sabalenka in the semifinals like last year if she can get past Spain’s Paula Badosa, who reached the last eight for the first time in Melbourne by beating Olga Danilovic 6-1, 7-6(2) on Margaret Court Arena.

Badosa had to rally from 5-2 down in the second stanza to get past the Serbian in straight sets and reach her second straight Grand Slam quarterfinal.

“It wasn’t like a real 5-2 because I was playing well,” said the 27-year-old.

Badosa said she was looking forward to taking on Gauff after losing to the American in Beijing and Rome last year to drop to 3-3 in their head-to-head meetings.

“I love Coco,” she said. “We always have tough matches. The last one was really tough for me… I hope I can have my revenge here.” — Reuters