Daria Gavrilova knocked Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky out of the Australian Open on Saturday night in Melbourne, defeating the the 12th seed in three sets and delivering a secondary bump to the national spirit: at points in the second set it had looked as though the only Australians who’d be left in action for the second week of singles matches would be the ball kids.
Gavrilova took the match 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 across two hours and 33 minutes at Margaret Court Arena, though she endured a torrid spell in the second set. Her victory booked a round four encounter with fifth seed Karolina Pliskova, who also weathered three gruelling sets in her 4-6, 6-0, 10-8 victory over Latvian teenager Jelena Ostapenko.
From two previous wins against Bacsinszky, world No26 Gavrilova knew she was in for plenty of long rallies and so it proved in the early stages. The Australian broke in the third game of the first set, but not until the fourth attempt. It had been 13 minutes and 37 seconds of white-knuckle toil for Bacsinszky in that service game, and it would prove an unfortunate microcosm of her night.
It also soon became a double break as Gavrilova took charge, but both players were jittery on serve in the first set. Appropriately, Gavrilova broke a fourth time to take it in 45 minutes after trading in a series of delicate backhand slices to go with her tireless defensive work.
In the second set it was Gavrilova’s turn to falter. She lost her serving rhythm and, for much of a troublesome 40-minute middle period of the match, the plot. Bacsinszky broke in the third game and the Australian was angrily muttering to herself between points.
Soon Gavrilova had become so consumed by negativity she was forced to consult hand-written notes during the changeover to try and steel herself. To an extent she did, but Bacsinszky held her nerve to take the second set 7-5 in 56 minutes.
Cracks appeared at either end of the court as both players dropped serve early in the third set, but the Australian charged to lead 5-2 and that buffer proved insurmountable. Bacsisnzky mounted one final challenge to bring it back on serve, but the local channelled the energy of loud and partisan crowd to break back one final time and seal the deciding set in 53 minutes.
Her opponent probably didn’t know it, but Timea Bacsinsky has a brother who plays in a Swiss post-rock band called The Evpatoria Report – so named for the Crimean city where messages describing human life are sent into space through a radio telescope. The message Gavrilova might take away from this victory is that even when she’s down, plenty of life remains in this Australian Open campaign of hers.
