\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Argentina\u2019s top-ranked player Francisco Cer\u00fandolo shocked world No.15 Andrey Rublev, beating the Russian 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-3 to reach the fourth round of the 2026 Australian Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cer\u00fandolo, world No. 21, played a great match, taking the win in 2 hours and 7 minutes. He is now the last Argentine standing, after countryman Tom\u00e1s Etcheverry was eliminated later in the Melbourne night.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old was on the front foot from the start, serving a nearly flawless first set and committing just five unforced errors. He managed to break Rublev\u2019s serve and wrap the set on his terms.<\/p>\n
In the second set, Rubleb upped the ante and even had chances to break Cer\u00fandolo\u2019s serve, but neither was able to gain an advantage. In the tie break, the Argentine showed greater composure and took it with relative ease.<\/p>\n
The third set looked like a potential turning point for the match, as Rublev went on a 2-0 lead. However, three double faults by the Russian in his next turn of serve allowed the Argentine to get back in the game. He went on to break at 3-2 and wrapped the rest of the set with his strong serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled because I\u2019m playing great tennis,\u201d he told the press after the match. \u201cI\u2019m feeling great on the court. It was my third time at this instance, so I really wanted to win and settle the score.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cer\u00fandolo went on to thank the support of the Argentine fans, who\u2019ve been a mainstay of every match where their countrymen have featured.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to have so much support so far from home,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how the fans make you feel. I want to thank them because I know it\u2019s hard to come all the way here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time Cer\u00fandolo has reached the fourth round at the Australian Open. It ties his best result at any Grand Slam, as he reached the fourth round at the 2023 and 2024 French Open.<\/p>\n
Cer\u00fandolo will next face the world No.3, Germany\u2019s Alexander Zverev, on Saturday. The Argentine leads the head-to-head tally 3-2, though his wins have come only in clay-court tournaments.<\/p>\n
Etcheverry fought hard, but waved goodbye The other Argentine tennis star vying for a spot in the fourth round was Tom\u00e1s Etcheverry. The La Plata native faced a tough challenge, taking on one of the most in-form players on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour, Kazakh Alexander Bublik.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite regularly matching up to Bublik\u2019s powerful serve and eccentric shot-making, Etcheverry fell 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 6-4 in two hours and 37 minutes of play.<\/p>\n
It will go down as a good run for Etcheverry in Australia. He tied his best career result at a Grand Slam and will likely return to the top 60 in the men\u2019s ATP rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Argentina\u2019s top-ranked player Francisco Cer\u00fandolo shocked world No.15 Andrey Rublev, beating the Russian 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-3 to reach the fourth round of the 2026 Australian Open.\u00a0 Cer\u00fandolo, world No. 21, played a great match, taking the win in 2 hours and 7 minutes. He is now the last Argentine standing, after countryman Tom\u00e1s Etcheverry was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":29018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7837,7838,67,5570,8105],"tags":[7833,7834,1369,5568,8099],"class_list":["post-29017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australian-open","category-francisco-cerundolo","category-sports","category-tennis","category-tomas-etcheverry","tag-australian-open","tag-francisco-cerundolo","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tomas-etcheverry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}