Diego Schwartzman matched his best mark in the Australian Open and will collide with Novak Djokovic

1/24/2020

The Peque reached the knockout stages after beating Serbian Dusan Lajovic in three sets. Guido Pella, the other Argentine in the race, plays with the Italian Fabio Fognini.

Diego Schwartzman (14th in the world rankings) is still stomping at the Australian Open: he beat Serbian Dusan Lajovic (27th) by 6-2, 6-3 and 7-6 (7) to access the round of 16 where will collide this Sunday with the Serbian Novak Djokovic (2nd).

The Peque, who still did not yield any set in the contest and matched his best mark in the first Grand Slam of the circuit, needed 2 hours and 15 minutes of confrontation at the Margaret Court Arena to eliminate the European.

The tennis player in Buenos Aires was very strong during his first two sets and clearly beat Lajovic, who only gave him resistance in the third round.

This was explained by Schwartzman himself, after the game: "In the first two sets I was quite superior because of the solidity of getting well and I took advantage of every Lajovic mistake. The third was weird, I stayed a bit for the legs (sic). And in the tie break I was lucky. I was nervous at the end because I knew that the game could stretch and because I saw that I was lowering my level and he turned upside down. "

The Peque already matched his best participation in Australia: it was in 2018, when Rafael Nadal fell against the Spaniard. Last year he stayed in third round, where he lost with Czech Tomas Berdych.

Lajovic only offered resistance in the third sleeve. (EFE)

To continue dreaming, in the round of 16, will be measured with another Serbian, Novak Djokovic, who had no problems to overcome the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka (71º) with a forceful 6-3, 6-2 and 6-2.

This Sunday will be the fourth match between the Argentine and the Serbian, the third in Grand Slam tournaments and all with victories for Nole.

Djokovic didn't give Nishioka a chance. / EFE

The other Argentine who is still in the race is Guido Pella (22 °), who faces Fabio Fognini (12 °). The game will start at dawn this Friday, approximately from 4.45 in Argentina, and will be televised on ESPN.

Pella comes to this instance after beating John-Patrick Smith (308 °) and Gregoire Barrere (84 °) in the first and second round respectively. For his part, the Italian beat Reilly Opelka (38 °) and Jordan Thompson (66 °) in the first round. The European comes with much more shooting hours since in both games he had to reach the fifth set to keep the victory.

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The record between the two is in favor of the bahiense. They faced three times where the Argentine was left with two victories and the third was for the Italian. The last meeting was in Munich with a 6-3 and 6-2 victory for Pella.

The match will be played at the Melbourne Arena and the winner will face in the fourth round the winner of the clash between Sam Querrey (45) and Tennys Sandgren (100th), the two Americans.

The Swiss Roger Federer (3rd), the biggest winner of Grand Slam titles in history, will also be presented. The rival of the current world number 3 will be the Australian John Millman (47 °) approximately from 6.15, also by ESPN.