UNLIKE in the women’s draw of the 2024 Australian Open, the surprises have not been as frequent in the men’s bracket.

Plenty of the big names continued their marches deeper into this year’s tournament with wins yesterday, and Australia’s hopes are not over yet after Alex de Minaur defeated Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli last night 6-3, 6-3, 6-1.

Cobolli kept the 10th seeded Australian on his toes early in their clash, but as it progressed, the Italian seemed to drift out of the contest, leaving de Minaur to capitalise and quickly wrap up the match.

Many of the match stats finished very evenly, but the truly determining factors were the win off first and second serve percentages – 75-59 and 61-42 respectively in favour of de Minaur.

De Minaur’s next opponent will be Andrey Rublev, after the Russian defeated Sebastian Korda in straight sets last night.

Several of the other top 10 seeds also progressed in straight sets yesterday, including Stefanos Tsitsipas, Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner.

The only match that could be considered a slight upset was the match between Adrian Mannarino and Ben Shelton, with the 20th seeded Frenchman beating the 16th seeded American in a five set tussle.

RESULTS:

2024 Australian Open – Day 6

S. Tsitsipas [7] def. L. Van Assche 6 – 3, 6 – 0, 6 – 4
N. Djokovic [1] def. T. Etcheverry [30] 6 – 3, 6 – 3, 7⁷ – 6²
J. Sinner [4] def. S. Baez [26] 6 – 0, 6 – 1, 6 – 3
A. Rublev [5] def. S. Korda [29] 6 – 2, 7⁸ – 6⁶, 6 – 4
T. Fritz [12] def. F. Marozsan 3 – 6, 6 -4, 6 – 2, 6 -2
A. de Minaur [10] def. F. Cobolli [Q] 6 – 3, 6 – 3, 6 -1
K. Khachanov [15] def. T. Machac 6 – 4, 7⁷ – 6⁴, 4 – 6, 7⁷ – 6⁵
A. Mannarino [20] def. B. Shelton [16] 7⁷ – 6⁴, 1 – 6, 6² – 7⁷, 6 – 3, 6 – 4