Alex de Minaur departs Madrid Open after straight-sets loss. Iga Świątek beats Madison Keys

2
Alex de Minaur's Madrid Open has come to a crushing end, beaten in straight sets by Italian Lorenzo Musetti.

Sixth-seeded de Minaur, who reached the last 16 at a fifth consecutive ATP Masters 1000 event, was beaten by Lorenzo Musetti in one hour and 23 minutes, 6-4 6-2.

After losing their first encounter at the 2022 Australian Open, Musetti has won three matches in a row against de Minaur.

The 10th seed will next take on Canadian lucky loser Gabriel Diallo, who saw off Bulgaria's 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov, 5-7, 7-6 (9/7), 6-4.

De Minaur was broken in the opening game and two more times in the second set by Musetti to crash out.

He will turn his attention to the Italian Open, which begins in Rome next week.

Matteo Arnaldi backed up his victory over Novak Djokovic by defeating Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 7-5 to reach the quarterfinals of an ATP 1000 tournament for the second time.

The Italian will next face Jack Draper, who advanced by beating Tommy Paul 6-2, 6-2.

In the women's draw, defending champion Iga Świątek survived "one of the weirdest matches" of her career after losing the first six games to Madison Keys before prevailing in three sets.

In a re-match of their thrilling Australian Open semifinal, world number two Świątek triumphed 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 to set up a semifinal clash against Coco Gauff.

Iga Świątek needed three sets to get past Australian Open champion Madison Keys. (AP: Manu Fernandez)

Gauff, 21, beat 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 6-1 in the youngest WTA 1000 quarterfinal in 16 years.

Since the introduction of the WTA 1000 tier, only the 2009 Indian Wells quarterfinal between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Agnieszka Radwanska had a younger combined age.

Świątek was overpowered by fifth-ranked Keys early in their quarterfinal but eventually found a way to rally past the Australian Open champion on centre court.

"It was one of the weirdest matches I played," Świątek said.

"Maddie was playing just perfectly at the beginning and I wasn't really proactive with anything.

"I let Maddie do more mistakes by just putting the ball back and the momentum changed."

Świątek is trying to reach her third straight Madrid final. She beat Aryna Sabalenka last year after losing to the world number one in 2023.

Against world number seven Andreeva, Gauff recovered after being down a break at 5-4 in the first set. She faced two set points.

"Off the ground I think I was dictating most of the rallies, so happy with that," said Gauff, who is fourth on the WTA rankings.

"Overall, I'm happy with everything."

Both Gauff and Andreeva had been able to finish their matches in the previous round just before play was paused because of the major blackout that brought Spain and Portugal to a standstill earlier this week.

More than 20 matches had to be postponed at the Caja Magica tennis complex.

AAP/AP

Click here to read article

Related Articles