Dayana Yastremska catches the train, defeats Victoria Azarenka for first Grand Slam quarterfinal

Dayana Yastremska charmed the Rod Laver Arena crowd as she continues to cast a spell on the 2024 Australian Open, riding a wave of momentum that began in qualifying and has landed her in a maiden major quarterfinal, shocking Victoria Azarenka, 7-6 (6), 6-4.

“My heart, I feel like it’s going to jump out of my body!” the 23-year-old exclaimed to Casey Dellacqua during her on-court interview. “I imagined myself losing to her 25 times because I was losing the tiebreaker, losing in the second set. I felt like I was always running behind the train.

“But I’m a little bit of a fighter, so that’s why I won this match!”

A former world No. 21, Yastremska has endured numerous struggles since winning her first WTA title as a teenager—from an anti-doping violation from which she was ultimately cleared to the contuining invasion in Ukraine—but it has all come together for the big-hitting Ukrainian after battling through three rounds of qualifying, and is into the last eight with the loss of just one set in her last four matches and a two-hour, seven-minute victory over Azarenka.

Not only has Azarenka twice lifted the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup, the former world No. 1 won her two most recent meetings with Yastremska, including a straight-set victory last fall on hard courts in Guadalajara.

Despite the stronger resume, Azarenka was nonetheless on the back foot early in the match, falling behind an early break before rallying to twice serve for the opening set.

Yastremska, who dealt with the trauma of fleeing Ukraine as a refugee in the early onset of Russia and Belarus’ invasion into her homeland, gamely broke back each time and played Azarenka tough in the ensuing tiebreaker, shaking off a missed set point to convert a second with a forehand winner.

Azarenka looked to have turned the tables on Yastremska to kick off the second set, racing through the first three games and earning a chance for a 4-0 lead. Yastremska quickly regained the initiative from there, reeling off the next five games of her own with the help of some audacious shot making.

“I like to play aggressive, but I don’t like to make a lot of mistakes,” she explained on court. “I felt a little tired, and my coaches were telling me to play points in two shots. I didn’t know how, especially when Vika was running so much!

“I just started going boom, boom, boom! I don’t know how to explain it. I was just enjoying playing and I could see my team was so confident in me. Even when I was losing, I could see them going, ‘Come on!’ and it made me be like, ‘Come on, let’s go!’”

Serving for the biggest Grand Slam result of her young career, Yastremska hit through her fatigue and set up match point with two backhand winners and clinched the upset with one last winner off the forehand side.

“You can see that I’m barely standing, but I’m trying to pretend like I’m not tired,” she said to laughter from the crowd.

Competing in a wide-open half of the women’s draw, Yastremska will next face Iga Swiatek’s conqueror Linda Noskova, who won the first three games of her fourth round against Elina Svitolina before the former world No. 3 was forced to retire due to a back injury.

Starting the tournament barely ranked inside the Top 100, Yastremska is poised to re-enter the Top 50 for the first time since 2021: after three years of running behind the train, it appears she has caught it once and for all.