Coco Gauff hits a return against Poland's Magdalena Frech during their women's singles match. Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP
In the Australian Open, Coco Gauff made light work of Poland's Magdalena Frech to seal a 6-1 6-2 victory on Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.
The 19-year-old, who won the Auckland Open earlier this month, wrapped up the match in just over an hour.
It's the first time Gauff has made it past the fourth round of the first Grand Slam of the season.
With Australian great Rod Laver watching on, Gauff was delighted to win on the court he gave his name to.
Gauff will now play Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk who stormed into her first Grand Slam quarter-final with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Maria Timofeeva of Russia.
"There's no better court in Australia than Rod Laver Arena and it was an honour to play in front of you, so thank you for coming to my match," she said.
Reigning champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus also reached the quarter-finals when she swept past American Amanda Anisimova 6-3 6-2 on Margaret Court Arena.
Anisimova, down to 442 in the world after an eight-month break from the game, had held a 4-1 lead in career meetings with Sabalenka but found the 2024 version of the 26-year-old a much tougher nut to crack.
In the opening set, the former French Open semi-finalist was unable to win a single point off Sabalenka's first serve, which on occasion was clocked at the 195km/h mark.
Djokovic not hanging around
Top seed Novak Djokovic delivered a master class to defeat Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in straight sets, the 36-year-old wrapping up the match in an hour and 44 minutes.
The Serb won the first two sets to love (6-0 6-0) and was on course to record a rare triple bagel score, till the 20th seeded Mannarino provided some belated but ultimately futile resistance in the third set, to lose that by 6-3.
Djokovic now faces either seventh-seeded Greek Stefano Tsitsipas or American 12th seeded Taylor Fritz in the last 8.
Novak Djokovic hits a return against Adrian Mannarino Photo: MARTIN KEEP/AFP
