Swiatek stumbles to an early exit

The world No.1 has a strong beginning but teenager Noskova, in her first Australian Open, pulls off an upset for the ages

- Ashish Magotra

On Friday, after notching up a 6-0, 6-0 win against Lesia Tsurenko in just 52 minutes, Aryna Sabalenka spoke about how one of her goals for 2024 was to serve out more bagels.

“Last year, Iga won so many 6-0 sets, that is one of the goals, to get closer to her,” explained defending women's champion Sabalenka, citing world No.1 Iga Swiatek as an inspiration behind her dominant form.

But a day later, Swiatek’s bagel-serving days at this year’s Australian Open came to an abrupt halt as world No.50 Linda Noskova, playing in her first ever Grand Slam Down Under, came up with an upset for the ages to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

With Swiatek’s loss, only 12 seeded players will make it into the third round in the women’s draw, equalling the lowest ever across all Grand Slams since 32 seeds were introduced in 2001.

If you didn’t see this coming, then don’t worry. For you certainly wouldn’t have been alone. Swiatek was on a 17-match winning streak stretching back to September last year.

Her record against players younger than her stood at 28-1 — Coco Gauff's victory in the Cincinnati semifinals last year was so far the only blip. And in the past 14 majors, she had slipped up just once before the fourth round.

There were simply no indications, and certainly none after the Pole took the first set in as straightforward a manner as possible. After winning the first set, she was a 73-1 winning run.

Noskova, who is just 19, was nervous to begin with and Swiatek attacked the second serve mercilessly with the Czech player winning only 29% of points if she missed her first serve. The world No.1 wasn’t brilliant or anything, but she was solid; solid enough to usually win in the third round.