As the first tennis Grand Slam of the calendar year, the Australian Open in Melbourne has always been an exciting sports event to kick off the year.
And as the pre-Open tournaments were being held, there was the raging undercurrent of how Serbian Novak Djokovic would be on a mission of revenge, for being unceremoniously booted out of the Slam last year over his vaccination status. Arriving Down Under early, there were hamstring issues swirling around, but by and large, Djokovic was being tagged as the Man to Beat, as he took the Adelaide International over Sebastian Korda in three sets.
Only by sealing a decisive break at 3-3 of the final set, did we see a glimmer of hope for Sabalenka, but this was followed by very tense service games on her part, as Rybakina was out to avenge said break. In the end of it all, it was a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory that now catapults Sabalenka to Slam champion.
On the Men’s side, it was Novak seeking to annex his 22nd Slam title, and tie Rafa Nadal at 22 . And to be brutally frank, unless you were a Djokovic fan, this had to be one of the more unexciting Australian Open Men’s Draws. The likes of Kyrgios and Alcaraz withdraw before the Open even began. On the top half of the draw, Tsitsipas emerged as token spoiler and finalist; while in his own half, Novak had turned the challenges of de Minaur and Rublev into ‘practice sessions’. What drama there was emanating from the Novak camp had more to do with aforementioned hamstring, and the emotional outbursts and running arguments between Novak and coach Goran Ivanisevic. Me, I sometimes felt that this arguing was staged to make Novak’s demolition jobs look slightly more dramatic.
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