Eugene in London and Lucy all the way in Dakar, Senegal (commitment), dissect the AO draws, including notable first-round matchups
News From Melbourne (pod recorded Friday 5 February) Hotel worker returned a positive test that meant play at all six AO lead-up events on Thursday was cancelled. Thankfully all players tested returned negative tests.
– Friday’s was schedule was packed as a result. WTA events played 10-point match tiebreaks in the third set – ATP tournaments carried on as normal but players were required to play two matches in a day (shout out to Felix!!!)
– Serena withdrew from the Yarra Valley Classic with a right shoulder injury after reaching the semi-finals. Fully respect it.
– Naomi’s looked good in the Gippsland Trophy and Felix is on the brink of title success at the Murray River Open.
The Draw:
Women…
(3) Naomi Osaka vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
(10) Serena Williams vs. Laura Siegemund
Venus Williams vs. Kirsten Flipkens
Sloane Stephens vs. (26) Yulia Putintseva
Coco Gauff vs. Jil Teichmann – could play Elina Svitolina or Marie Bouzkova in R2
Heather Watson vs. Kristyna Pliskova
Jasmine Paolini vs. (6) Karolina Pliskova
(Q) Whitney Osuigwe vs. Lin Zhu – Elise Mertens or Leylah Fernandez in R2
Notable mentions…
(5) Svitolina vs. Bouzkova
(18) Mertens vs. Fernandez
(32) Veronika Kudermetova vs. Marta Kostyuk
Men…
(10) Gael Monfils vs. Emil Ruusuvuori
(20) Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Cedrik-Marcel Stebe
Frances Tiafoe vs. Stefano Travaglia – top seed Novak Djokovic potentially in R2
Mikael Ymer vs. (26) Hubert Hurkacz
(Q) Elias Ymer vs. (8) Diego Schwartzman
(Q) Michael Mmoh vs. (Q)Viktor Troicki – second seed Rafa Nadal potentially in R2
Notable mentions…
(11) Denis Shapovalov vs. Jannik Sinner
(15) Pablo Carreno-Busta vs. Kei Nishikori
(18) Grigor Dimitrov vs. Marin Cilic
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