Welcome to the Australian Open briefing, where will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.

On day six, Aryna Sabalenka showed some vulnerability, coffee was a talking point and two players set up a fascinating rematch.

How Aryna Sabalenka’s early performances change the feel of the tournament

Just like last year, world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is through to the fourth round of the Australian Open without dropping a set. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Twelve months ago, defending champion Sabalenka posted wins with scorelines of 6-0, 6-1; 6-3, 6-2; and 6-0, 6-0 to get this far. She looked invincible. Her aura helped her carry on that form into the tournament’s second week and she duly retained her title without dropping a set.

Things feel different now.

Sabalenka has looked shaky for long stretches of all three of her matches in the 2025 edition. On Friday, she had to overcome a pretty dismal serving performance in a 7-6(5), 6-4 win over the unseeded Clara Tauson. Sabalenka was broken four times in the first set and appeared to struggle with her timing on a sweaty Melbourne afternoon, spraying errors that momentarily made her look like a mile away from an all-conquering world No. 1.

The other way to frame it is that Sabalenka showed great mental resolve to grind out the win. It was the kind of match she might well have lost a few years ago and she spoke of how proud she was of her mental effort during her on-court interview.

For the rest of the field, the struggles of this event’s would-be three-in-a-row champ at least provide a glimmer of hope that she might be beatable here. It’s equally possible that Sabalenka is just getting into her stride, ready to return to her formidable best in the second week.

Don’t tell Mirra Andreeva — her next opponent. Or the other 14 players left in the women’s draw.

The Australian Open coffee wars intensify

After a smooth 6-0, 6-2 win over Rebecca Sramkova, Iga Swiatek had the Melbourne crowd in the palm of her hand for her on-court interview.

Speaking about another of their favorite subjects seemed like a safe bet.

How is the coffee in the Australian Open’s host city? — which Swiatek declared she loved 12 months. “In Sydney, I found better,” Swiatek replied.

After an on-court performance backed by the controlled aggression and relentless defense that took her to the top of the tennis world in 2022, this was an egregiously unforced error.

Alex de Minaur, who is from Sydney, demurred in the face of the same question. “There’s no better place for coffee than Australia,” the ATP world No. 8 said after beating Tristan Boyer 6-2, 6-4, 6-3.

Perhaps fortunately for Swiatek, the Australian Open coffee wars have moved on from the players to the fans. With the tournament posting attendances of over 80,000 every day and over 90,000 on the majority of them, there needs to be a lot of coffee available. A 99-acre site with 15 coffee shops seems limited, and a Reuters report details disgruntled coffee-seekers purportedly walking “kilometers” to get their hands on some.

Coffee demand oscillates with the Melbourne weather; on hotter and drier days, the lines at bars for beer, wine, soft drinks and water are longer than those for coffee, but the wetter days in the early part of the tournament gave more cause for seeking out hot drinks.

This year’s provider is Urban Cup, which Tennis Australia describes as a pop-up coffee stall. It has no web presence and no recognizable connection to Melbourne, which for a city with myriad world-renowned coffee brands is something of a surprise.

Lavazza, a fixture of coffee sponsorships at tennis’ other three Grand Slam events, is in espresso hoppers in the media areas, but conspicuous by its absence around the wider grounds.

The upside of a first week in which things — mostly — went to seeding

The 2025 Australian Open has not been a tournament of upsets so far, and fans are already seeing the benefits, with numerous tight matches between two top-20 players in the third round.

On Friday, No. 18 seed Donna Vekic and No. 12 seed Diana Shnaider treated Melbourne Park to a fiercely competitive three-setter, that Vekic won 7-6(4), 6-7(3), 7-5 in almost three hours.

In an undulating contest, Shnaider served for the match up 5-3 in the final set but was broken and didn’t win another game as Vekic powered towards the finishing line. With Pam Shriver, one of her coaches, 7,000 miles away in Los Angeles, Vekic has navigated tough early matches with calm assurance.

At around the same time, the No. 11 seed Paula Badosa edged out No. 17 seed Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.

The draws on the men’s and women’s side look pretty stacked for the fourth round, the benefits of which should massively outweigh the lack of week one upsets so far. Qualifier Learner Tien’s stunning win over men’s No. 5 seed Daniil Medvedev and Laura Siegemund’s ousting of women’s No. 5 seed Zheng Qinwen remained outliers until late Friday night, when Olga Danilovic put on a stirring performance to knock out No. 7 seed and U.S. Open finalist Jessica Pegula, 7-6(3), 6-1.

Novak Djokovic, who preceded Danilovic on Rod Laver Arena and beat Tomas Machac, watched her match point on a big screen and raised his arms aloft when it was over. Danilovic equals her best run at a major by reaching the fourth round; the last time she did it was at the 2024 French Open.

A repeat of 12 months ago beckons for two entertainers of the men’s game

Another star of the coming new generation in men’s tennis fell out of the draw Friday.

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina saved a match point and climbed back from two sets down to beat Jakub Mensik, the big and talented 19-year-old. This was a day after Lorenzo Sonego took out the phenom Joao Fonseca, also in five sets.

Those losses took some air out of the newness balloon floating over the grounds the past week. Take heart: Davidovich Fokina’s win sets up a rematch of a crazy five-set battle he had here two years ago with Tommy Paul, two athletic and sometimes flashy players capable of putting on a show.

That five-set rollercoaster unfolded on Court 7, in front of maybe a few hundred people in the second round. It’s all but forgotten in tennis history, except for those involved.

Paul’s eyes lit up at the memory on Friday. He came back from a two-sets-to-one deficit that day and ended up making the semifinals. “The level of that match, if it was on a stadium court, that would have been talked about, but we were on an outside court,” he said. “It was a high level all the way around.”

May it be once more.

Shot of the day

Carlos Alcaraz has been missing from this tournament’s highlight reel, until now.

Australian Open men’s draw 2025

Australian Open women’s draw 2025

Tell us what you noticed on the sixth day…

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Tennis, Women's Tennis

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