GRIGOR SAVES BEST FOR lAST
Grigor Dimitrov saved his best for last on Monday at the Australian Open, and it wasn't even during his 2-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2, 6-1 win over Denis Istomin to advance to the quarterfinals.
Dimitrov was asked at his post-match news conference if he ever got distracted by love.
"You deserve the best answer now ... let me think about it," he said, laughing at the left-field question. "That was the greatest thing I've heard, man. Oh, wow."
Dimitrov admitted: "I obviously have a soft spot for that."
But then he added that "I always try to keep whatever else outside the court. I think when I was younger, I was struggling to kind of differentiate love from a personal love or a tennis love or whatever else, for sure."
He said he's matured.
"There was (a) time, a period, that I wasn't, like, kind of sure how to deal with both things in the same time," the 25-year-old Dimitrov said. "But you learn. I guess we grow. I don't want to say I've learned from my mistakes, but ... hopefully it's going to help me for the future through any kind of falling-in-love stuff."
PRESSURE OF BEING NO 1IJ
Martina Navratilova believes the pressure of being No 1 got to Angelique Kerber, who was beaten in her fourth-round match by CoCo Vandeweghe on Sunday night.
Kerber replaced Serena Williams as the No 1 player after winning her second Grand Slam title at the US Open last September. But since arriving in Melbourne to begin her title defense at the Australian Open, she appeared tight and lacked confidence in her shots.
Navratilova said Monday that the No 1 ranking brings "a different kind of pressure and it takes some time getting used to it." "Who she got the No 1 ranking from is Serena Williams, so you just feel like you're always looking over your shoulder," Navratilova said. "Sometimes, when you get to No 1, you protect it, and when you play that way, you're going to lose against good players," she added. "You need to go after it, which is what made Angelique Kerber improve and get to No 1 (last year)."
MIRJANA'S FAIRYTAlE CONTINUES
Mirjana lucic-Baroni is making another run at the important end of a Grand Slam tournament — for the first time in nearly 20 years — beating US qualifier Jennifer Brady 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the Australian Open quarterfinals.
lucic-Baroni made the Wimbledon semifinals in 1999 at the age of 17. Not long after, the Croatian player was out of the sport entirely and was forced to spend years scraping her way back to the majors. The now-34 lucic-Baroni came onto the scene in 1997 by winning the first WTA tournament she ever entered at age 15. Months later, she captured the Australian Open doubles title with Martina Hingis. After her surprising run at Wimbledon, though, her career rapidly spiraled. By 2003, she was forced to stop playing because of financial hardships. She waited 19 years to get her second win at Melbourne — and now has three more.