Sawt Falasteen - Anisimova 'loses her mind' after Melbourne quarter-final exit

The 24-year-old Anisimova's hopes of a third Grand Slam final in a row imploded in a blur of unforced errors and with several angry shows of frustration.

Sixth-seeded Pegula beat the fourth seed 6-2, 7-6 (7/1) in Melbourne and Anisimova admitted her opponent was "playing great tennis. She's always playing stable".

But Anisimova was annoyed with herself too, as she totted up 44 unforced errors to Pegula's 21 and made seven double faults.

At one moment in the second set she had her head in her hands as the match slipped away.

The defeat and the nature of it will rankle, especially because she was considered a serious challenger for the title.

"I would say as a tennis player, you can be very irrational, and obviously I'm very grateful for the life that I have, the career I have," said Anisimova, who in 2023 took an eight-month break from tennis for her mental health.

"But you kind of lose your mind after matches like this.

"I think that after a day like today, I'm going to completely lose all sense of rationality for, like, 48 hours.

"That's just kind of what goes into working so hard for something and then you have matches and days like this."

Pegula's reward is a semi-final meeting with Kazakh fifth seed Elena Rybakina.

K.Hassan--SF-PST