The primary tennis main of the yr, the 2025 Australian Open, kicked off Monday in Melbourne, Australia.
A number of top-ranked gamers handled early season jitters as World No. 7 Novak Djokovic and World No. 11 Tommy Paul dropped their first units however managed to regain type to advance. Nevertheless, no less than three notable gamers had been ousted within the first spherical.
Eleventh-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas
The Greek suffered a stunning upset by the hands of 20-year-old American Alex Michelsen, who prevailed with a 7-5, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win. Michelsen confirmed inexperience by committing eight double faults, permitting Tsitsipas again into the competition within the third set.
Nevertheless, he produced well timed winners to place away Tsitsipas — a former two-time main finalist — to register the largest win of his profession. After the loss, Tsitsipas mentioned his transfer to skip the doubles quotient of the occasion backfired on him.
“I suppose karma hit me,” Tsitsipas mentioned, via ATP Tour. “I used to be not in a position to ship or play the way in which I hoped to at this yr’s occasion.”
Sixteenth-seeded Jelena Ostapenko
The previous French Open champion was rusty in her first grand slam match since giving delivery final April. She dropped two early break factors within the first set however roared again within the second by saving 5 match factors when her opponent, Belinda Bencic, served at 5-4.
In the end, Ostapenko did not convert on two set factors to lose 6-3, 6-7 to the unseeded Swede. After the match, Bencic famous that she and Ostapenko first performed one another at a U-12 match in 2007 after they had been each 10. That familiarity helped her.
“We all know one another very nicely from the juniors,” Bencic mentioned, via WTA Tour. “We’re each ’97 [born]. Perhaps it is like this additional motivation of simply somebody being your age.”
Tenth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov
The veteran Bulgarian ended 2024 with a bang with spectacular performances on the U.S. Open, Stockholm Open and Paris Masters. He carried the shape into the 2025 Brisbane Open the place he reached the semifinal earlier than retiring with a groin injury.
Sadly for Dimitrov, these tender tissue accidents are beginning to flare up extra steadily in his age-33 season. On Monday, he was pressured to retire towards unseeded Italian Francesco Passaro with the identical groin/hip harm. Dimitrov was additionally pressured to retire ultimately yr’s Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. One wonders if he is likely to be on the verge of calling it a day.
As is the character of grand slam tennis, one should not be shocked if we see extra upsets on Day 2. An upset alert to maintain tabs on is Brazilian prodigy Joao Fonseca’s major debut towards World No. 9 Andrey Rublev. If Fonseca pulls this off, it’s going to mark fairly the most important debut.
