2022 AUSTRALIAN OPEN DAY 8 MEN’S NOTES

2022 AUSTRALIAN OPEN DAY 8 MEN’S NOTES Monday 24 January Round of 16 Bottom Half No. 2 Daniil Medvedev (RUS) v Maxime Cressy (USA) Page 2 No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) v No. 20 Taylor Fritz (USA) Page 6 No. 9 Felix Auger-Aliassime (CAN) v No. 27 Marin Cilic (CRO) Page 9 No. 11 Jannik Sinner (ITA) v No. 32 Alex de Minaur (AUS) Page 13 On court today… • Alex de Minaur returns to Rod Laver Arena today, with the Australian No. 1 taking on Italy’s Jannik Sinner for the 3rd time in his career. Sinner has won both of the pair’s previous meetings and has also won his only previous meeting with an Australian player at the Australian Open, having defeated Max Purcell in the 1st round here in 2020. Both players have reached one Grand Slam quarterfinal before – Sinner at 2020 Roland Garros and De Minaur at the 2020 US Open – and both will be desperate to break through to their 2nd here this year. Sinner will become the 5th Italian man to reach the quarterfinals here, a day after Matteo Berrettini became the 4th with victory in his round of 16 match on Sunday. De Minaur would be the 35th Australian man in the Open Era to make the last 8 here, but just the 3rd in the last 20 years after Lleyton Hewitt in 2005 and Nick Kyrgios in 2015. • The men’s match in the night session on RLA will see No. 4 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas up against No. 20 seed Taylor Fritz, with the latter through to this stage at a Grand Slam for the first time. The pair have known each other since their junior days – and both are former junior world No. 1s, with Fritz having reached the top ranking in June 2015 and Tsitsipas getting there 11 months later in May 2016. Fritz won 2 of their 3 matches at junior-level, but Tsitsipas has won both of their meetings as professionals, at the Laver Cup and Paris-1000 in 2019. Fritz will need to defeat a Top 5 player at a Grand Slam for the first time in his career if he is to advance to his first Grand Slam quarterfinal tonight. • World No. 2 Daniil Medvedev has made steady progress through the draw in the opening week here, and the US Open champion will hope for another victory on Margaret Court Arena today. Standing in his way is one of the players of the season so far – French-born American Maxime Cressy has won 9 matches so far in 2022 and reached his first Tour-level final at Melbourne prior to the Australian Open. The world No. 70 is aiming to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal on just his 4th main draw appearance at a major. Medvedev has lost to a player ranked as low as Cressy at the Australian Open just once before, on his debut in 2017 when he fell to world No. 131 Ernesto Escobedo in the 1st round. Should he avoid defeat today, he will advance to his 6th Grand Slam quarterfinal, equalling Mikhail Youzhny in 5th place on the Open Era list for most Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances by a Russian man. • The final match of the day on John Cain Arena sees the No. 9 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime up against the 2018 Australian Open runner-up Marin Cilic, who is bidding to continue the momentum from his victory against No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev in the 3rd round on Saturday. Cilic is looking to reach his 14th Grand Slam quarterfinal – which would equal Goran Ivanisevic’s record for most Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances by a Croatian man – but it would be his first in more than 3 years, having not reached the last 8 at a major since the 2018 US Open. Auger-Aliassime, meanwhile, is looking to join compatriot Denis Shapovalov in the quarterfinals here, which would mark the first occasion that multiple Canadian men have reached the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam. He will need to record his first win over Cilic if he is to progress today, having lost all 3 of their previous meetings – one a season every year since 2019