Carlos Alcaraz acknowledged that while he won the third-round match, he lost the battle of the drop shots against Corentin Moutet.
That could be a first for the 22-year-old Spaniard, who grew up relentlessly practicing his drop shots and is now at the Australian Open chasing a career Grand Slam.
The left-handed Moutet mixed things up for Alcaraz in an almost festival Friday vibe on Rod Laver Arena, his blend of drop shots, slice, tweeners, half-volleys, angled volleys and even an underarm serve keeping the world's No. 1-ranked player on his toes.
The 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 win over the No. 32 seed appeared like a fairly convincing scoreline, but the match was anything but routine.
“When you play someone like Corentin you don’t know what’s going to be next,” Alcaraz said in his on-court TV interview. “I had so much fun on the court. As you could see, we both pulled off great shots. Great points.”
Alcaraz laughed when he reflected on his surprise near the end of the first set, when he was fed up with tracking down drop shots and told his support team “I’m not going to run to get those.”
“I was tired to go forward to the net,” he said. “I thought we were in a drop-shot competition, but he won!”
There were moments of tension, of course, such as in the second set when Alcaraz surrendered a 3-0 lead when the 26-year-old Frenchman went on a four-game roll.
Ever the showman himself, Alcaraz chimed in with some of his own tricks and tweeners across three sets. It helped him stay composed.
In the first round, Moutet was booed by the crowd for his underarm serve on match point. For his debut on the main arena, there was much more love from the Aussie crowd.
After winning a point near the end of the match with a perfect, deep lob into the corner, he made an iconic fist pump celebration.
When he held in that game with a winning volley, he marked it by doffing his cap.
Alcaraz will next play on Sunday against No. 19 Tommy Paul, who advanced when Alejandro Davidovich Fokina retired with an injury after dropping the first two sets 6-1, 6-1.
Sabalenka, Coco Gauff advance
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 3 Coco Gauff had tough routes through the third round.
Sabalenka said there were times she felt like her head, her hands and her racket were not connected but she still had just enough to squeeze past Anastasia Potapova 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7).
Gauff weathered early trouble against Hailey Baptiste before advancing 3-6, 6-0-6-3, cutting down her unforced errors and not serving any double-faults in the second set.
Sabalenka, chasing her third Australian Open title in four years, led 6-5 and 40-0 in her opening set but Potapova saved all three set points to send it to a tiebreaker. Sabalenka led 3-0 in the tiebreaker before Potapova leveled at 3-3.
Sabalenka held two more set points and clinched the set when she laced a backhand down the line.
Potapova recovered two service breaks in the second to level it at 4-4 and then again force a tiebreaker. Potapova had three set points in the tiebreaker but Sabalenka rallied when the pressure was on.
“She played incredible tennis,” Sabalenka said. “I was always on the back foot. There are days where you just have to fight — it was such a fight.”
Sabalenka won the Australian Open title in 2023 and 2024 and was the runner-up a year ago to Madison Keys.
She next faces rising star Victoria Mboko, who beat 14th-seeded Clara Tauson 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-3.
“I never actually talked to her, never had chance to hit, to practice with her. I was watching some matches," Sabalenka said of the teenage Canadian. “Yeah, she’s a great player. She’s a fighter. She’s playing really good, aggressive tennis.”
Yulia Putintseva shrugged off a vocal crowd to end Turkish player Zeynep Sonmez 's run, 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-3.
