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Breakout 17-year-old star Amanda Anisimova has flawlessly passed all the tests put in front of her at the 2019 Australian Open. The next one comes in the form of No. 8 seed Petra Kvitova for a spot in the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park.
For those in the United States looking to watch, the match is scheduled to start Saturday at about 7 p.m. ET. It’s taking place before the regular ESPN2 broadcast starts for the night, so it won’t be on TV, but you can watch the entire match live on your computer, phone or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN (no cable subscription necessary) that will have coverage of all non-televised 2019 Australian Open matches.
You can sign up for a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of Anisimova vs Kvitova on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One or other compatible streaming device via the ESPN app.
Anisimova vs Kvitova Preview
Anisimova, who was born the same year (August 31, 2001) that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out (the movie version!), is the first player born in this century to reach the fourth round at a Grand Slam.
And the 17-year-old American sensation hasn’t just scraped by. She has dominated.
In the first round, she disposed of World No. 88 Monica Niculescu in straight sets, 7-6(3), 6-4. And that was her closest match of the tournament thus far. She lost just two games in her thrashing of No. 24 seed Lesia Tsurenko, and then in the third round against No. 11 Aryna Sabalenka–a popular pick to win the tournament–she rolled to a 6-3, 6-2 win in just over an hour, adding in perhaps the shot of the tournament thus far:
The youngest American to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since someone named Serena Williams did so at the 1998 French Open, Anisimova isn’t just a nice story anymore. She’s a legitimate threat.
First, she’ll need to find a way past World No. 8 Petra Kvitova, who is seeking her first Grand Slam quarterfinal since the 2017 US Open, and her first at Melbourne Park since 2012.
The 28-year-old veteran has been similarly dominant this week, taking down Magdalena Rybarikova, Irina Camelia Begu and Belinda Bencic all in straight sets. She’s dropped just 14 games along the way, and her longest match was one hour and nine minutes.
“I’m really enjoying it,” she said. “I’m happy to be here playing, of course be[ing] in the second week is something really special for me after a while. I did not have that good beginning of the season for a very long time, so I’m really happy for that.”
This matchup marks a rematch of last year’s Indian Wells Round-of-32 meeting in which Anisimova took down Kvitova in straight sets (6-2, 6-4). That put a halt to Kvitova’s 14-match winning streak, and now she’ll enter this one on a similarly hot streak of eight straight victories.
With Kvitova at the top of her game, and with Anisimova’s transcendent talent shining through, this looks like one of the premier matches of the tournament, even if it is still just the fourth round.
The winner will face either the women’s top-ranked player from Australia in Ashleigh Barty or 2008 Australian Open winner Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals.