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American 18-year-old Iva Jovic pulled off the biggest upset of her young career when she stunned Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 7-6(3) at the Australian Open<\/a> on Friday for her first Grand Slam last-16 appearance.<\/p>\n The 29th seed turned the tables on Paolini, who had beaten her last year at Indian Wells and the U.S. Open, to claim her maiden victory over a top-10 player and extend her tour-leading win streak to 10 matches in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels amazing, I\u2019ve been working really hard for it. I\u2019ve been wanting this one for a while now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sign up for NBC News\u2019 The Sports Desk newsletter <\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI had a couple of tough losses. I\u2019m just so happy to get through that barrier and get the win today.\u201d<\/p>\n Jovic had the opportunity to serve for the match before Paolini fought back to force a tiebreak, where the American showed her nerve and won the last five points to book a fourth-round clash with Yulia Putintseva.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to focus on what I was doing earlier in the match, being really aggressive and controlling the play,\u201d Jovic added.<\/p>\n \u201cI think when I served for the match, I got a little too passive. So I told myself to go out swinging and it helped in the tiebreak.\u201d<\/p>\n It capped a memorable day for North American teenagers after Canadian 19-year-old Victoria Mboko also advanced with a 7-6(5) 5-7 6-3 victory over Clara Tauson.<\/p>\n Paolini, the world number eight, took a medical timeout in the opening set and afterwards revealed she had been hampered by a stomach problem.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I lay down on the sofa after lunch and that wasn\u2019t a good idea for my stomach. I stepped on court and I couldn\u2019t move at my best.\u201d<\/p>\n But Paolini was full of praise for her young opponent.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s very tough opponent already \u2014 very mature on court, not many mistakes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s playing good every shot, basically. So I think she has a really bright future ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n American 18-year-old Iva Jovic pulled off the biggest upset of her young career when she stunned Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 7-6(3) at the Australian Open on Friday for her first Grand Slam last-16 appearance. The 29th seed turned the tables on Paolini, who had beaten her last year at Indian Wells and the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/American-teen-stuns-7th-seed-at-Australian-Open-for-career-best.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18041,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions\/18041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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