No. 1 Swiatek, No. 7 Gauff both lose at Australian Open
Melbourne (AP): It all came so seemingly easy for Iga Swiatek last season two Grand Slam trophies, eight titles overall, a 37-match winning streak, a lengthy stay at No. 1 in the rankings.
Those accomplishments made everyone else expect constant greatness from Swiatek, which she can't do anything about. They also changed the way she approached big moments, and a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open's fourth round Sunday made Swiatek wonder whether she needs to reassess her outlook.
"I felt like I took a step back in terms of how I approach these tournaments, and I maybe wanted it a little bit too hard. So I'm going to try to chill out a little bit more," Swiatek said. "I felt the pressure, and I felt that I don't want to lose' instead of I want to win.'"
So there will not be a showdown between Swiatek and No. 7 seed Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park. Instead, it will be Rybakina taking on 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, a 7-5, 6-3 winner against Gauff, with a semifinal berth at stake.
"I kept her under so much pressure," Ostapenko said.
Both the 22nd-seeded Rybakina, a 23-year-old who represents Kazakhstan, and the 17th-seeded Ostapenko, a 25-year-old from Latvia, made it this far in Australia for the first time.
"There was moments in the match where I was getting frustrated, because I normally can problem-solve, but today I feel like I didn't have much answers to what she was doing," said Gauff, an 18-year-old from Florida who was the runner-up to Swiatek at the French Open last June.
"There was balls I was hitting deep, and she was hitting them on the line and hitting them back deep, over and over again," said Gauff, who wiped away tears during her news conference. "It's just one of those days that just didn't go my way and went her way."
One key: Ostapenko went 3-for-3 converting her break chances, and Gauff was just 1-for-8 in such situations.
Rybakina, meanwhile, used her big serve to produce a half-dozen aces, part of an overall 24-15 edge in total winners against Swiatek.
The women's fourth-rounders scheduled for later Sunday were: No. 3 Jessica Pegula vs. 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova, and two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka vs. unseeded Zhu Lin.
In men's action, 13th-seeded Karen Khachanov reached the quarterfinals by beating No. 31 Yoshihito Nishioka 6-0, 6-0, 7-6 (4), setting up a meeting against No. 10 Hubert Hurkacz or No. 29 Sebastian Korda, who were playing in the afternoon.
Other men's matches Sunday: No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. No. 15 Jannik Sinner, and No. 6 Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. unseeded Jiri Lehecka.
Until Sunday, both Swiatek and Gauff looked fairly dominant for a week, winning every set they contested. Swiatek dropped a total of just 15 games, Gauff just 19, through three matches.
"For sure, when you play against No. 1, I think you have really nothing to lose. I knew that I had to be aggressive from the first ball because she's a great mover, and she defends really well," Rybakina said. "So I was trying to just attack her from the first ball, and it really worked well.
Her ranking of No. 25 does not properly reflect her ability or results because her championship at the All England Club in July did not come with any ranking points. The WTA and ATP tours withheld all points at Wimbledon in 2022 after the All England Club barred players from Russia and Belarus from participating because of the invasion of Ukraine.
Rybakina who was born in Moscow but has played for Kazakhstan since 2018, when that country offered her funding to support her tennis career said her current standing "doesn't bother me, because it's been already six months," yet also acknowledged it does provide some motivation.
Despite her status as a major champion, Rybakina has been out of the spotlight: Her first-round match at Melbourne Park was placed on tiny Court 13 last Monday; her match against two-time Slam champ Garbi e Muguruza at least year's U.S. Open was on Court 4.
But her game is worthy of much more attention, as she displayed in knocking out Swiatek, one match after defeating 2022 Australian Open runner-up Danielle Collins.
Swiatek was not at her best, and Rybakina had a lot to do with that. In the opening game, Swiatek led 40-love but got broken. In the next, Swiatek held two break points at 15-40 but failed to convert either. So early on, while it ended up being 2-2, it very well could have been 4-0 in Swiatek's favor, and she termed that sequence "a little bit disturbing."
Rybakina wound up serving out that set at love, capping it with a 113 mph (183 kph) ace, and her dangerous backhand was quite a help, too: She produced six winners off that wing in the first set, compared with zero for Swiatek.
In the second set, Swiatek appeared to have gotten herself back on track, going up 3-0. But that surge didn't last long, and Rybakina took six of the match's last seven games.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Trump rushed out of dinner event after shots fired; one arrested
Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump and other top White House officials were evacuated unharmed from the annual dinner of White House correspondents after a man armed with multiple weapons fired shots outside the ballroom of the hotel.
The incident took place at around 8:34 PM local time when dinner was served. At that time, Trump was seen having a conversation with Weijia Jiang, the President of the White House Correspondents' Association, and mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was scheduled to present a show at the marquee event at the Washington Hilton here.
Secret Service officials and other security personnel covered the President, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President J D Vance, and the Second Lady Usha Vance, who were seated at the head table, and escorted them out of the ballroom.
Several guests at the dinner, including leaders across the political spectrum, journalists and other invitees, ducked under the table, apparently as a reflex reaction.
Putting up a brave face, President Trump later announced on Truth Social that the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days.
“Boom, boom, boom, boom is all that I heard, and many guests ducked under the table,” a C-SPAN reporter at the dinner said.
Hours later, Trump addressed a press conference at the White House and announced that the security personnel had captured one person who hails from California.
“I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray going down. I've heard that many times. It was a pretty loud noise, and it was from quite far away. He (the attacker) hadn't reached the area at all. They really got him,” Trump told reporters, recalling the incident.
Trump said one security officer was shot at but saved as he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Several protestors had lined up on the road outside the hotel, raising slogans against the Trump administration and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
A CNN reporter who was outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton said he saw a gunman opening fire just a few feet away. He was among the dozens of attendees who took cover as law enforcement swarmed the venue.
The suspect has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen from California.
Asked how Saturday’s incident impacts him as the US president, Trump told reporters he is in a dangerous job but that he is no “basket case.”
“I like not to think about it. I lead a pretty normal life, considering, you know, it’s a dangerous life. I think I handle it as well as it can be handled,” Trump said.
Trump has survived two assassination attempts over the past two years – first at a presidential election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, and later in Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15, 2024.
“I will say you had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, and progressives...everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd,” he said.
“We had some great work done by law enforcement, but in light of this evening's events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts in resolving our differences peacefully,” Trump said.
