Day 8 of the 2025 Australian Open at Melbourne Park so far began with Ayrna Sabalenka being too good for Mirra Andreeva, Coco Gauff sensational from the opening set down to a tremendous 2nd & 3rd set fightback over Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, and Carlos Alcaraz through to the Quarter-Final thanks to Jack Draper’s injury issues when he couldn’t continue following the 2nd set.
With Sabalenka, we always love having a crowd favourite, especially at the RLA alongside her love of dance moves on TikTok unlike 2022 AO women’s runner-up Danielle Collins, who was knocked out in straight sets by her US compatriot Madison Keys. As said, she was unstoppable and unchallenged from start to finish – that’s all. Now her opponent will be 4 x AO and seasoned Quarter-Finalist in Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
For Andreeva, her record here wasn’t bad while she’s slightly better on clay when playing at the Roland Garros (semi-final where she was def. by Jasmine Paolini) including the Paris Olympics (Silver medal with Diana Shnaider for their unofficial Belarusian & Russian country team in the women’s doubles) last year. Yes, she’s only 17 and has a very bright future ahead but just not her day today at the hands of a AO’s back-to-back defending champion.
Meanwhile, the first of the men’s R16 also began during the day a bit later in the afternoon with Alcaraz and Draper. That first set was top-notch between someone who has won each of the grand slams outside the AO so far and a rising Brit coming off a breakthrough US Open run outside of the Final last year.
Alcaraz managed to win the first two sets with the second one being too quick.
But then the match ended right on the spot without seeing the other half distance hoping to see a Jack Draper miracle from behind when the Briton just couldn’t go on due to injury issues. He took some medical time out following the first set before he realised he had to retire hurt after he lost the second by saving it for the best next time.
Yeah, heartbreaking to see him go following a brilliant run up here until this point every time Jack sees off through a series of five-set contests & nothing else like a straight or four-sets win – such as Argentine Mariano Navone (1R) + two Aussies in Thanasi Kokkinakis (2R) & Aleksandar Vukic (3R). We wish him all the very best with his recovery as he’s got really good potential to dominate in the other grand slam events later this year.
Carlos Alcaraz’s bid to finally win his first AO continues and that may be a bit of a tall order when it comes to his next opponent. Although he has that young age advantage if 22 x championship winner Novak Djokovic wins over Jiří Lehečka tonight & it looks like Novak has Andy Murray by his side as his coach.
Interesting to see what both veterans has been up to stop these next gen elite youngsters stealing the torch from him as this ain’t over by the 37-year-old himself.
For now, Day 8 continues tonight with Alex De Minaur coming back out tomorrow night to hopefully book his first AO Quarter-Final when he takes on 20-year-old US superstar Alex Michelsen, even though that potential QF opponent may likely to be current champ Jannik Sinner.
