Battle of Attrition: Melbourne edition

[San Bernardhinault]

Neither player flaking out yet. Davis holds to love first game of the third.

[Janik]

You rather cursed Davis there, SB. She has been all over the place for the last ten minutes, with one shot in particular standing out as a nadir. She has to win the 1-3 game, you would think.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yes. It suddenly looked like she got a little tired and couldn't control her power.

[Janik]

I think Davis' brain is a little frazzled. Trying to play on after a very clear out call and nearly hitting a ball kid on his way to collect the loose ball is a sign of that. But she is still fighting and breaks back after a magnificent rally.
That frazzledness makes me think it will still be Halep in the end.

[San Bernardhinault]

And then it comes back on serve. I was worried that the point where Davis almost took the ballboy's head off would have got into her head, but she held out. Good nerves.

[Janik]

Halep breaks for 5-4. Some good play, and also a couple of complete shanks by Davis.

[Janik]

Love hold in a similar position in set two of course.

[Janik]

Well, she won't be repeating that after a big double at 15-0.

[Janik]

Not at all. Back at 5-5. Now I'm much less confident in Simo.

[Janik]

But she will get another go at 6-5.

[Janik]

No dice again. Reminiscent of Kvitova-Petkovic, where Petra couldn't complete the job on two or three goes and than lost the first time Petko got her nose in front.

[San Bernardhinault]

And still can't do it. Great match, this.

[Janik]

The thread title is at risk of coming into play soon. Cramp must be right around the corner for both.

[Janik]

We haven't even had a match point yet, and the three hour mark is rapidly approaching. That must be incredibly rare for a Women's match.

[Janik]

Now MPs. Three of them. For Davis.

[Janik]

Two saved. Both with second serves as well.

[Janik]

Make that all three. First serve for the last of them, though. And five points in a row from 0-40 to hold. 11-all. This may never end!

[Janik]

MP Halep...

[Janik]

Davis goes just wide, Halep wins 15-13. What a match. Two warriors battling each other to a near standstill.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/benrothenberg/status/954564562753236997

[Janik]

Sascha, Sascha, Sascha. Not again...

[Janik]

Kerber beats Sharapova 1&3

[ad hoc]

Woohoo Halep scrapes through and Sugarpova goes out

[Janik]

Other results:
Chung beat A.Zverev in five, as alluded to above. Sascha won only five points in the deciding set.
Berdych has recently completed a surprisingly comfortable straight sets win over Delpo. JM won just eight games.
Fognini beat Benneteau in five.
Thiem beat Mannarino in three.
Sandgren recovered from losing the opening set to beat Marterer in four.
Fucsovics beat Kicker in three, the score exactly mimicking Berdych-del Potro (in fact the other way around as Fucsovics-Kicker happened first). Bad day for Argentina.
Keys beat Bogdan in two.
Pliskova beat Safarova in two. This and the Keys match started and finished whilst Halep and Davis were going at it.
Osaka beat Barty in two, ending home hopes in the Women's.
Strycova beat Pera in two.
Garcia beat Sasnovich in three.

And in play, Djokovic is two sets up on Ramos Vinolas, and Federer-Gasquet is just in the very early stages. Once Nole wraps things up (presumably), the final match to start will be A.Radwanska vs Hsieh, which should have lots of interesting shot-making.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Fantastic that Drugscheat lost to Kerber by such a margin.

On another topic: it's considered reiatively unusual of course for players to become world no.1 without ever winning a slam - 7 women have managed that, of whom 2 subsequently won slams and 4 of the remaining 5 are still active, but only 2 men ever have, one of whom subsequently won a slam. But surely it must be at least as unusual for a player to have been no.3 in the world without ever having reached even the QFs of a slam, as is the case, still, with Sasha Zverev.

[edited - had forgotten he'd recently been 3rd in rankings.]