Ziga Sesko of Slovenia wins the boys' final at the Australian Open; Ksenia Efremova wins the girls

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Slovenian Ziga Sesko lifted his game after a shaky first set to beat favored American Keaton Hanse 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday in the junior boys final at the Australian Open.

Sesko had little time to savor his victory, other than to lift the trophy over his head at the after-match presentation. He was due to board a flight home hours after the final to join the Slovenian team for a Davis Cup tie against Turkey, starting Friday.

The seventh-seeded 17-year-old started a slight underdog against fourth-seeded Hanse, from Torrance, California.

Hanse looked the stronger and more steady player in the first set, breaking for a 3-2 lead in the fifth game and comfortably holding to take the set in 38 minutes.

Sesko lifted strongly in the second set, gaining more purchase on serve and beginning to crush his forehand while also mixing in a difficult backhand slice. He broke Hanse in the sixth game and took the set in 37 minutes.

The Slovenian dominated the final set, breaking Hanse in the third game. While he was broken in the sixth game for 3-3, he broke back immediately to lead 4-3. Sesko had two championship points on Hanse's serve in the ninth game and conceded only one point in his last service game to take the final on his third match point.

Hanse and Sesko are close friends on tour and have warmed up together all week. Both were playing for the first time on the Rod Laver Arena, the roof of which was closed against the possibility of rain.

“I'd like to congratulate Ziga on an amazing tournament and really well-deserved win,” Hanse said. “I hope I can get revenge on him somewhere in the future.”

Sesko is the third Slovenian to reach a Grand Slam junior singles final and the first since Katarina Srebotnik won the Wimbledon and US Open titles in 1998.

“Keaton is an amazing man, an amazing tennis player,” Sesko said. “I hope we will play many more times and I hope you don't get the revenge.”

Ksenia Efremova of France beat Ekaterina Tupitsyna of Russia 6-3, 7-5 in the junior girls final, which was the first meeting of the pair.

She’s a very, very good player,” said Efremova, who is the first French girl to reach a Junior Grand Slam final since Elsa Jacquemot won the Roland Garros girls’ title in 2020.

“You maybe don’t hear a lot from her but I know that she’s practicing a lot in Russia and she’s competing there. She doesn’t really travel much," Efremova said ahead of the final. “It’s going to be a very great and interesting match between us because she’s an aggressive player."

Tupitsyna showed that aggression in hitting 21 winners agaisnt 45 unforced errors in the final. But Efremova was steadier, put 72% of first serves in play and won 58% of first serve points.

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Ksenia Efremova of France holds her trophy after defeating Ekaterina Tupitsyna of Russia in the girl's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Keaton Hance of the U.S. plays a forehand return to Ziga Sesko of Slovenia during the boy's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Ziga Sesko of Slovenia plays a forehand return to Keaton Hance of the U.S. during the boy's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Ziga Sesko of Slovenia celebrates after defeating Keaton Hance of the U.S. in the boy's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Ziga Sesko, left, of Slovenia poses with his trophy after defeating Keaton Hance, right, of the U.S. in the boy's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Review-Journal announced Friday that it will no longer print its rival the Las Vegas Sun for the first time in decades, amid an ongoing legal dispute over the nation's last joint operating agreement stemming from a 1970 law designed to preserve newspapers.

Readers “will not find a printed Las Vegas Sun insert inside,” the Review-Journal said in an editorial, noting the Sun maintains a website, has a few hundred thousand followers across social media platforms, and is free to produce its own newspaper.

“We encourage them to do so. The Review-Journal competes with countless sources of news and entertainment, but we would welcome one more. We just don’t want to foot the bill. It is time the Sun stood up on its own two feet,” the editorial said, without specifying the cost.

The two publications will be in court Friday and the Sun hopes a judge will order printing to immediately resume, attorney Leif Reid said in an email. It will be the first day in 76 years that the Sun hasn’t been printed, he said.

“This does irreparable harm to our community, as no one benefits when a local newspaper is prevented from being published,” he said.

The now-rare joint operating agreement required the Sun to be printed as a daily insert in the Review-Journal, while both companies remained editorially independent with separate newsrooms and websites.

A lower court had found the agreement was unenforceable because a 2005 update was never signed by the U.S. attorney general, and in February the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the Sun.

The Review-Journal editorial called the Supreme Court decision a decisive victory, saying that halting publication of the Sun on Friday was “a result of 6½ years of litigation between the newspapers, precipitated by the Sun.”

Such agreements between rival publications have dwindled as part of a "long, slow goodbye of newspapers as we knew them,” said Ken Doctor, a news business analyst. The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News ended a 40-year agreement last year. USA Today Co., which owns the Detroit Free Press, recently announced its plans to purchase the Detroit News.

In 1950, the Sun was founded in response to the Review-Journal’s refusal to negotiate with typesetters from the International Typographical Union. The union started its own newspaper and reached out to businessman Hank Greenspun for financial backing. The Greenspuns still own the paper.

The Review-Journal has been publishing since 1909, first as the Clark County Review. It is owned by the Adelson family, casino magnates and mega GOP donors, and remains the state’s largest newspaper.

The Review-Journal’s editorials lean more conservative, while the Sun’s lean liberal. The 1970 law signed by then President Richard Nixon, called the Newspaper Preservation Act, was designed to save newspapers costs while maintaining competition and editorial variety in cities as newspapers began to financially struggle.

The papers first entered into a joint operating agreement in 1989 when the Sun was struggling to stay afloat financially. The agreement made the Sun an afternoon newspaper during weekdays and a section within the Review-Journal on weekend mornings, while the Review-Journal handled production, distribution and advertising. The Review-Journal also collected all revenue and was required to pay the Sun monthly to cover the Sun’s news and editorial expenses.

In 2005 the agreement was amended to make the Sun an insert in the Review-Journal every morning.

Review-Journal owners sought to end the agreement in 2019, and in response the Sun’s owners filed a lawsuit alleging that ending the agreement violated anti-trust laws.

The 1970 law allowing such agreements was signed at a time when news options weren't as prevalent and there was more concern over news monopolies.

Las Vegas — and Nevada as a whole — today have more strong, independent news organizations compared to other places, said Stephen Bates, a journalism and media professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The Sun also publishes online. But it has argued in court that losing its print product could make it harder to recruit staff, cause a loss in readers, and even force it to close.

Genelle Belmas, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas who specializes in media law, said it would be disappointing if the last joint operating agreement in the country ends. During visits to Vegas, she's enjoyed being able to pick up the Review-Journal and see the Sun folded inside, offering two differing points of view in one place. Online news outlets make it easier for consumers to stay in their echo chambers, she said.

“Every local news outlet we lose — and that includes big towns, small towns, whatever — is a loss of perspective and a loss of a potential alternative view,” Belmas said.

FILE - This Dec. 17, 2015 file photo shows a sign outside the building housing the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Las Vegas. AP Photo/John Locher, File)