Rafael Nadal held off a spirited performance from Cameron Norrie to progress to the fourth round of the Australian Open.
In the end the 20-time Grand Slam winner proved too strong for the sole remaining Brit, as the second seed recorded a straight sets 7-5, 6-2, 7-5 victory.
Day six of the tournament saw the first day without fans amidst the state of Victoria’s latest circuit breaker lockdown.
Elsewhere in the men’s singles, fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas beat close friend Mikael Ymer in straight sets 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 and Fabio Fognini edged past Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.
Daniil Medvedev is also through to round four but made hard work of defeating Serbia’s Filip Krajinović.
The Russian won the first two sets 6-3 6-3 scorelines but lost back-to-back sets in the third and fourth 4-6, 3-6 to set up a final set decider, which the fourth seed won 6-0.
Medvedev directed several verbal attacks towards coach Gilles Cervara during the game, with the Frenchman leaving the stands at the Rod Laver Arena.
Tempers also flared in the women’s singles, where sixth seed Karolína Plišková smashed two rackets on the floor as she made 40 unforced errors in her 7-5 7-5 loss to Czech compatriot Karolína Muchová.
In other women’s matches top seed Ashleigh Barty eased to a straight sets win over Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-2, 6-4 and fifth seed Elina Svitolina defeated Yulia Putintseva 6-4, 6-0.
In the men’s doubles, Nick Kyrgios recovered from yesterday’s singles loss to Dominic Thiem to win his second round tie with partner Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-2 6-4 against Julian Knowle and Lloyd Harris.
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Featured Image Credit: Stefan Brending (2eight) via Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
