Daily Times

MELBOURNE: Jenson Brooksby blew another huge hole in the Australian Open draw by sending second seed Casper Ruud tumbling out in the second round on Thursday, a day after his fellow American Mackenzie McDonald had ushered Rafa Nadal to the exit. While top seed Nadal was hampered by injury in his loss, Norwegian Ruud was simply outplayed for all but a few games of his 6-3 7-5 6-7(4) 6-2 loss to the 22-year-old Californian over nearly four hours on Rod Laver Arena. Those games came at the end of the third set when Ruud, who has recent Grand Slam pedigree after reaching the final at the French and U.S. Opens last year, saved three match points before running away with the tiebreak.

World number 39 Brooksby managed to recover his composure and his level to round out the win in the fourth set, moving on to a meeting with compatriot Tommy Paul. “I think that he played great today, didn’t make many errors at all,” said Ruud. “I didn’t feel like I played particularly bad, or not the level that I wanted to play, but he just ended up winning many of the longer rallies and had sort of an answer to all the questions that I asked him.” Brooksby’s win was followed by lucky loser Michael Mmoh stunning German former world number two Alexander Zverev 6-7(1) 6-4 6-3 6-2 to make it eight American men in the third round.

Eighth seed Taylor Fritz was unable to join the American charge as he was upset 6-7(4) 7-6(2) 6-4 6-7(6) 6-2 by Australian Alexei Popyrin, while Danish ninth seed Holger Rune despatched Californian Maxime Cressy 7-5 6-4 6-4. Qualifier Brandon Holt looked like he might join his fellow Americans in round three when he went two sets up against Roberto Bautista Agut, but the Spanish 24th seed rallied for a 4-6 2-6 6-3 6-2 6-2 victory. With two of his rivals now out and world number one Carlos Alcaraz absent injured, Novak Djokovic is in action against qualifier Enzo Couacaud later on Thursday looking to take another step towards a 10th Australian Open title.

Swearing in Russian: Andrey Rublev continued to carve his way through the draw with a 6-2 6-4 6-7(2) 6-3 win over Emil Ruusuvuori, the third-set setback coming after a row with the umpire over whether the fifth seed was swearing in Russian. He will next face Briton Dan Evans, who beat Jeremy Chardy 6-4 6-4 6-1 after the Frenchman also fell out with the chair official when a ball dropped from his pocket during a rally. “In my life, 20 years, I’ve never had one umpire bad like you,” he told Miriam Bley after demanding the point be replayed. “Where are you looking? You looking at the birds? The clouds?” There was also American success in the women’s draw on Thursday when Katie Volynets stunned ninth seed Veronika Kudermetova 6-4 2-6 6-2 to become the first U.S. qualifier to reach the women’s third round since Lindsay Davenport in 1993.

Shelby Rogers, however, was no match for Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, who recovered from a slow start to power past the American 6-3 6-1 and firm as a genuine contender for a first Grand Slam crown. French fourth seed Caroline Garcia likewise came through a potentially tricky tie against former U.S Open finalist Leylah Fernandez 7-6(5) 7-5. Magda Linette joined fellow Pole and top seed Iga Swiatek in the third round with a 3-6 6-3 6-4 upset of 16th seed Anett Kontaveit, while Croatian Donna Vekic downed 18th seed Liudmila Samsonova 6-3 6-0. After two days of severe weather disruptions, Melbourne Park escaped extreme heat or rain on Thursday with organisers on track to get the second round completed on schedule.