What happened overnight at Australian Open
MELBOURNE, Australia — While America slept, Roger Federer experienced a tennis nightmare for the ages. Friday afternoon at the Australian Open, the four-time winner of this tournament was knocked out in the third round, his first elimination before the fourth round since 2001. Read on to find out what else happened on Day 5 in Melbourne.
Federer's frustrating day at the office: World No. 46 Andreas Seppi of Italy had never beaten Federer in 10 previous encounters, winning just one of the 22 sets they'd played. But that didn't matter in this match on Rod Laver Arena, where Federer started slowly and was never able to fully catch up in a 6-4, 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(5) loss to Seppi. Federer led by four points to one in the second set tie-break, but his game lacked its usual finishing punch throughout, and Seppi took a two sets to love lead that he wouldn't give up. It ends the Swiss maestro's streak of 11 straight semifinal appearances in Melbourne, and opens up the bottom half of the draw for Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Grigor Dimitrov and local hopes Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic.
'Twirl'-gate spins on: The media firestorm following Eugenie Bouchard continued Friday, when the Canadian addressed whether she thought it was sexist that she was asked on court to twirl by an Australian TV commentator. "I stay out of this stuff," Bouchard said. "I'm fine with being asked to twirl if they're going to ask the guys to flex their muscles and stuff." Billie Jean King spoke out against the question, while Maria Sharapova declined to comment on the issue. "I wouldn't ask Rafa or Roger to twirl," Serena Williams had said on Thursday. "Whether it's sexist or not, I don't know. I can't answer that."
On rolls Australia: For the first time since 2012, Australia has two men's players into the second week of its home Slam as both Kyrgios and Tomic won. Kyrgios took care of Tunisian Malek Jaziri while Tomic downed another Aussie, Sam Groth, in front of a packed crowd. Kyrgios was slated to face Federer in the round of 16, but now has Seppi on the opposite side of the net. Tomic will take on No. 7 seed Tomas Berdych.
Friday's five: Five more big names won through on Friday, including Murray, Dimitrov, Simona Halep, Bouchard and Sharapova. Dimitrov had the most challenging of matches, taken to five sets by 2006 Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis on a lively Court 3, where Baghdatis got support from local Greek and Cypriot fans. Halep stopped the run of American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a 29-year-old who has made a comeback of sorts this week after sitting out much of 2014 due to injury. After her back-from-the-brink win in the second round, Sharapova breezed through round three, dropping just two games to Zarina Diyas, the No. 31 seed.