
The former world No.4 Laura Siegemund stunned the title contender Quinwen Zheng in the second round of the women's singles at the Australian Open 2025 on Wednesday, January 15. Zheng, the runner-up at the Australian Open 2024, joined another title contender Casper Ruud to suffer early exits at Melbourne Park.
Zheng was tipped to reach the final after a breakthrough 2024 season where she also claimed gold in the 2024 Paris Olympics. The young Chinese star suffered a 7-6, 6-3 defeat against the 2020 US champion Seigemund.
After the match, Seigemund, 36, revealed that she wanted to play aggressive tennis the 'best' in the world and said she was proud of her performance against the top-ranked Chinese star.
"Obviously I'm very happy and very proud of my performance," Siegemund said afterwards. "I expected a very, very tough game against this kind of top player. I think she's one of the best in the world.
"It's never going to be easy, and there will be continuously through the match, like, tough situations to solve. But I wanted to come out, you know, courageous. I wanted to show the variety of my game, be very aggressive, and that's what I did."
Meanwhile, in the men's singles, the 6th seed Casper Ruud was stunned by the world no.49 Jakub Mensik in the second round on Wednesday. The 19-year-old Mensik pulled off a stunning 2-6, 6-3, 1-6, 4-6 win against the three-time major at the Margaret Court Arena to cause the biggest upset in the men's singles.
The 10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic advanced to the third round but it was not a convincing performance from the legendary at Rod Laver Arena. Djokovic needed four sets to overcome the 21-year-old Jaime Faria to register a 6-1, 6-7, 6-3, 6-2 win to remain alive in his chase for the record-equalling 25th Grans Slam title.