The Australian Open this year has already had a few problems to solve, a few disappointments to shoulder.
Andy Murray, five times a runner-up in Melbourne, was in town to have hip surgery rather than take up his place in the draw. The women’s side was without two of its most renowned champions, Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka.
There were some raised eyebrows not just at Maria Sharapova’s invitation to the draw ceremony at the tournament where she fell foul of a failed drugs test two years ago but that ‘about to be revealed’ draws were already on display boards around the arena.
The temperatures see-sawed, rain-storms washed out a day of qualifying, and more rain interrupted the opening day of main-draw action. And there were technical hiccups too, with the tournament’s new website, and with live scores and results that stubbornly refused to load on its apps.
Then there were the draws themselves, which threw up some regrettably early face-offs. Young #NextGen men Casper Ruud and Quentin Halys, both ranked in the 130s, faced one another with barely time to draw breath after three qualifying rounds—but what a show they put on. After four and a quarter hours, the teenage Ruud sealed his first Major win in his first main-draw Major match, 11-9 in the fifth. The two men won 210 points each.
Two more teenage #NextGen stars, both boasting charismatic single-handed tennis, Denis Shapovalov and Stefanos Tsitsipas, earned a show-court for their first meeting. After two hours and a third-set tie-break, it was Shapovalov who advanced, joining No15 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and No17 seed Nick Kyrgios in a cracking segment where only one can make the fourth round.
The in-form Andrey Rublev, runner-up at the #NextGen finals and seeded in a Major for the first time, played David Ferrer, a man 15 years his elder and unseeded at the Australian Open for the first time in 12 years after injury last season. It took almost four hours to separate them, but the 20-year-old Russian showed just why he has become such a prospect: 77 winners and victory in the fifth set.
The women’s draw posed some big questions, not least in the bottom quarter. What about two French Open champions, 20-year-old Jelena Ostapenko versus 37-year-old Francesca Schiavone—who promised to retire last year but changed her mind? Youth had its day, with Ostapenko one of the first winners on this first day. Youth had its day, too, in the shape of 15-year-old qualifier, Marta Kostyuk, who put out No25 seed Peng Shuai in under an hour.
One intriguing section brought together a clutch of unseeded big names sandwiched between No24 seed Dominika Cibulkova and No10 seed Coco Vandeweghe. Kaia Kanepi put paid to the former, Timea Babos to the latter, while Olympic champion Monica Puig and former top-10 player Carla Suarez Navarro put out Sam Stosur and Magdalena Frech.
But one of the most highly anticipated women’s matches of the day came in another battle of the generations between one of the Open era’s greatest players, Venus Williams, seeded five and twice a Major runner-up last year, and 20-year-old Belinda Bencic, who reached a high of No7 while still a teenager.
It was, to say the least, a tough draw for a young woman who slipped down the ranks last year courtesy of wrist surgery—especially as she had last year drawn the younger Williams, 23-time-Major champion Serena, in the first round.
But Bencic came into Australia full of confidence and high on form, despite her No78 ranking. She had won back-to-back WTA titles and two ITF titles since last autumn, and lost only to Angelique Kerber in a competitive Hopman Cup in Perth. That’s 31 wins in her last 35 matches.
But for seven-time Major champion Williams, Australia marked a record 77th Major and in the absence of sister Serena, many saw this as her best chance to win her first Major in a decade.
She had not conceded a set to Bencic in four previous matches, but then she had not played the Swiss in well over two years, and this time, Bencic quickly brought her attacking style and accurate angles into play to score the first break over Williams, watched by the parents of her Hopman Cup partner, the Federers.
Bencic clearly drew a lot of confidence from defending champion Roger Federer in Perth—and she afterwards revealed that he had given her a few tips before the match. So after a delay to close the roof, and coming back from 0-40 down, Bencic held, and broke again for the set, 6-3.
The two exchanged early breaks in the second, but Williams came under repeated pressure as her error count built up. Bencic finally got the break for 7-5 in a little under two hours.
Not only had the Swiss made more winners than Williams, 32 to 22, but she had made only 12 errors, in a display that will reinforce her status as one of the most dangerous unseeded players in the draw. No wonder she could not stop smiling—delighted even to be in the main interview room: “It’s my first time!”
She went on: “I tried to come out and hit big, also tactically to be smart on the court. Against her, you have to be on the limit of your game and come with everything you have—and I tried to do that.”
On the men’s side, the only Briton in the draw, Kyle Edmund, was not given much of a chance against No11 seed and last year’s US Open runner-up, Kevin Anderson. However, Edmund had come within touching distance of the towering South African at Roland Garros, in a four-hour five-setter, and that after Edmund picked up a neck injury.
Edmund had suffered a worrying fall against Grigor Dimitrov in Brisbane a week or so back, and went on to pull out of Auckland. Was he now back to 100 per cent? It quickly became clear that he was.
Anderson edged a first-set tie-break, but Edmund’s penetrating forehand on Australia’s fast courts cranked up the pressure and he broke to take the second set.
The two men split the next two sets, too: It would again come down to a fifth and edge to four hours, but it looked as though Edmund had blown it when he conceded an immediate break, 2-0. But he broke straight back, and gradually Anderson began to make more errors. Edmund got the decisive break in the seventh game, and held to love to score his best win to date, 6-4.
A forehand winner count of 29 showed where Edmund’s strength lies, though once Anderson’s 35 aces were taken out of the equation, the Briton had made more winners overall than the South African.
But this was a win for concentration and focus, too, as Edmund afterwards explained:
“I think when I needed to I got the ball in play as much as I could. I took chances, and they paid off. Really calculated risks, I’d say. It was good. Especially in the fifth set, going down a break, then breaking him twice in a set to win is pleasing.”
He next plays the unpredictable Denis Istomin, who beat Novak Djokovic here last year, in an eighth of the draw that has lost all its seeds: Yoshihito Nishioka beat No27 Philipp Kohlschreiber; Yuichi Sugita beat No8 Jack Sock; and Ruben Bemelmans beat No18 Lucas Pouille. So an unseeded player, possibly Edmund, is sure to reach the quarter-finals.
The only men’s seed to fall in the top Rafael Nadal quarter was No16 John Isner to Matthew Ebden.