Australian Open 2019: Day 11, Match Points

LEARNING

No.7 seed Karolina Pliskova holds a 2-1 record against No.4 seed Naomi Osaka. The Czech won via retirement in the third round of Toronto in 2017 and 6-4, 6-4 in last year's Tokyo final - Osaka's first tournament after being crowned US Open champion. In between, Osaka scored a 6-3, 6-2 win over Pliskova in the quarterfinals of Indian Wells last year en route to capturing her first title.

No.8 seed Petra Kvitova and Danielle Collins will face each other for the second time three weeks after their first meeting, in the first round of Brisbane on New Year's Day this year. That match was a three-hour epic: Collins served for the win leading by a set and 5-4, but Kvitova came back to take it 6-7(6), 7-6(6), 6-3.

Naomi Osaka has become just the third player in the Open Era to win her maiden Grand Slam title at the US Open and follow it up with a semifinal showing at the subsequent Australian Open; the others are Lindsay Davenport (1999) and Kim Clijsters (2006). Osaka is also the first maiden major champion to reach the semifinals at her next Slam since Clijsters. No first-time US Open champion has reached the next Australian Open final in the Open Era; the last time any New York winner did it was Serena Williams in 2014-15, capturing the first and second legs of her second 'Serena Slam'.

The battle for World No.1, which included 11 players at the start of the tournament, is down to three: Naomi Osaka, Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova. Whoever wins the Australian Open title on Saturday will reach the top spot - unless Danielle Collins is the champion, in which case Osaka would be No.1. For Osaka and Kvitova, it would be their first time at the summit, while Pliskova would retake the ranking for the first time since her eight-week spell at No.1 in the summer of 2017. Collins, who is guaranteed to be ranked at least World No.23 next week, would crack the Top 20 with a final and the Top 15 with a title.

Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova have made it the third Grand Slam semifinal lineup in the Open Era to feature two Czech players. At Roland Garros 1986, Helena Sukova and Hana Mandlikova both lost in the last four (to Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert respectively), and at Wimbledon 2014 Kvitova defeated Lucie Safarova in the semifinals before going on to claim her second major title.

Karolina Pliskova became the first woman to save match points en route to victory at this year's Australian Open, fending off four in her quarterfinal against Serena Williams. It is only the third time Williams has lost from match point up at a major: in the third round of the 1999 Australian Open, she wasted two against Sandrine Testud in a 6-2, 2-6, 9-7 loss and at Roland Garros 2010, Samantha Stosur saved one to win their quarterfinal 6-2, 6-7(2), 8-6 - the most recent Williams loss after holding match point before yesterday. The last time Williams had held so many match points before losing was in the 2001 Los Angeles quarterfinals, in which Monica Seles saved six to win 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(2).

Pliskova has now saved match point in seven wins since becoming a Top 10 player. Previously, the Czech saved one against Alexandra Dulgheru in the first round of Moscow 2015; one against Venus Williams in the fourth round of the 2016 US Open; one against Daria Kasatkina in the first round of Beijing 2016; one against Garbiñe Muguruza at the 2016 WTA Finals; one against Zhang Shuai in the third round of the 2017 US Open; and, most recently, two against Alison Riske in the Tokyo quarterfinals last year en route to the title.

Naomi Osaka is the third Japanese semifinalist at the Australian Open in the Open Era, following Kazuko Sawamatsu (1973) and Kimiko Date (1994). Osaka would be the first Japanese finalist in Melbourne ever with a win today.

For the fifth consecutive year, the Australian Open semifinals feature one unseeded player - and Danielle Collins is the third of those to be an American ranked No.35, following Madison Keys in 2015 and CoCo Vandeweghe in 2017. The other two were Johanna Konta (No.47 in 2016) and Elise Mertens (No.37 in 2018).

Both Premier warm-up champions have reached the Australian Open semifinals for the first time. Petra Kvitova is aiming to become the sixth player in the past 40 years to pull off the Sydney-Melbourne double, following Martina Navratilova (1985), Monica Seles (1996), Martina Hingis (1997), Justine Henin (2004) and Victoria Azarenka (2012). Karolina Pliskova is bidding to become the first ever Brisbane-Melbourne double champion; the only Brisbane winner to make the Australian Open final was Maria Sharapova in 2015, losing there to Serena Williams.

TRENDING

READING

Writing for Tennis With An Accent, Matt Zemek argues: "It is one of the central tasks - and measurements - of elite tennis players: Do you back it up?" In becoming the first new major champion in 13 years to reach the semifinals of her next Grand Slam, Naomi Osaka is doing just this.

Covering the rollercoaster that was Karolina Pliskova's upset of Serena Williams, Joel Drucker writes for tennis.com that "Pliskova didn't so much conquer Williams so much as embalm her, proficiently but also silently."

Over the course of Danielle Collins' Melbourne run, "fiery, feisty confidence has been the hallmark of her play... perhaps more than any one shot," writes Ava Wallace for the Washington Post in a profile that also includes an interview with Collins' old University of Virginia coach, Mark Guilbeau.

ORDER OF PLAY

Click here to view the second Thursday's order of play at Flinders Park.

WATCHING