She enjoys it so much on the courts of Melbourne Park that she prolongs the pleasure. The Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, from qualifying, played and won her eighth match at the 2024 Australian Open, Wednesday January 24, to reach her first Grand Slam semi-final. The 93rd player in the world dismissed in two sets (6-3, 6-4) the Czech Linda Noskova (50th), who, at 19, had overthrown world number one Iga Swiatek in the 3rd round.
At 23, Dayana Yastremska becomes only the second player from qualifying to reach the final four at the Australian Open in the Open era (since 1968), after Christine Dorey in 1978. “It’s nice to write the story, I wasn’t even born at that time,” smiled the Odessa native.
For a place in the final, she will face the Chinese Qinwen Zheng, world number 15, or the Russian Anna Kalinskaya (75th), who will face each other in the evening.
A nice hunting painting
On her Australian hunt, Dayana Yastremska has already knocked down the Czech Marketa Vondrousova, 7th in the world and surprise winner of Wimbledon in 2023, in the first round, and the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, former world number one now 22nd, in the round of 16 of final. Before the Australian fortnight, Yastremska had never made it past the round of 16 at a Grand Slam (at Wimbledon in 2019).
Yastremska, who climbed to the top 20 in 2019 and 2020, before slipping outside the top 100, was cleared in June 2021 on appeal after a positive doping test initially sanctioned by a suspension.
The poster for the other semi-final is already known: it will be a remake of the final of the US Open 2023, between Aryna Sabalenka, world number 2 and holder of the trophy, and Coco Gauff, number 4 world and victorious in New York in 2023.