It looks like no one has started this years tennis chat, so here goes.
Australian Open is starting in the next hour.
We’ve been watching the Netflix series Break Point in anticipation.
Sinner is safely through the first round with a routine win over Van de Zandschulp.
Sakkari wins easily over Hibino, but it’s her first win in a grand slam since the last Aussie Open.
Djokovic is having a bit of a harder time against a teenage qualifier, but looks like he’s on course now.
Rublev had to go all the way to a fifth set tie break to beat Seyboth Wild. Not a good sign.
ETA: Djokovic is safely through.
I didn’t see it, but it was apparently a great match against a kid half his age(literally!).
I watched the replay on ESPN+. It took Djokovic seven match points to finish the match. That is some great never-give-up mindset from the kid, Dino Prizmic.
Djokovic showed great sportsmanship after the match. He’s also showing his age; his focus and speed noticeably dropped in the fourth set.
Kyrgios and John McEnroe are the commentators on Tennis Channel.
I just can’t take it.
First Round is done. Not many upsets; many matches are not really competitive. I enjoyed the Danielle Collins (US) vs Angelique Kerber (Germany) match; neither were seeded and it went three sets of good tennis. Ben Shelton (US, 16 seed) vs Bautista Agut (Spain) was a fun match. I’m hoping big things for Ben.
I’m getting tired of Mens Grand Slams going best out of five sets. It makes each set less important. It’s the quality of the tennis that makes Grand Slams fun, not the length of matches.
Medvedev vs Ruusuvuori just started set #5 about 10 minutes ago.
It is 3:25 am in Melbourne. They didn’t start the match until about 11:15 pm.
I think that is a little crazy.
The changes they made were supposed to prevent this. I think some players (or coaches) predicted it wouldn’t work. Seems they were right.
There were some rain delays earlier in the day.
I believe the Medvedev match was played in one of the courts with a retractable roof.
I see that Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan, seeded 3) was defeated by unseeded Anna Blinkova in split sets ending with a tiebreaker at 22-20 points. That’s like an entire fourth set. I’m going to have to watch on replay.
All matches should be best of three sets. 
What changes?
They added an extra day to the tournament to avoid fixture congestion. I think they limited the number of day session matches on the show courts to reduce the likelihood that the evening session doesn’t start on time.
But apparently the problem is that there is a women’s singles match at 7pm (7:15 really) and then a men’s match on the show courts. If the women’s match runs really long or there’s a rain delay, the men may not get on until late in the evening anyway. There have been days when I wake up at 6:30am EST (10:30pm Melbourne time) and the evening session is over or nearly over. Other times the men’s match is in the first set.
There shouldn’t be any rain delays on the “show” courts because they all have retractable roofs. At least three of them do (Rod Laver, John Cain, and Margaret Court).
Unless there is bad weather forecast and an enexpected storm shows up.
It takes time to close the roof, and play is stopped during that process, plus there is time to dry the court. I saw this myself two days ago. Casper Ruud was complaining about them closing the roof, disbelieving the weather forecast. Then the heavens opened and it was pouring rain for a few minutes while the roof was being closed. Then the ball kids (I assume) were wiping down the court.
It wasn’t a very long rain delay but it wasn’t five minutes either.
Lots of great tennis in the third round and round of sixteen. The quarterfinals are set.
On the women’s side, two Ukrainians and two Czechs are through. Only one American: Coco Gauff (4-seed). Looking forward, the likely champion will be either her or Aryna Sabalenka (2-seed), who could meet in a semifinal. The upper bracket has only one seeded player left, Qinwen Zheng (12, China).
On the men’s side, all the top four seeds made it the quarterfinals. The lowest seed is Taylor Fritz (12, USA) who is playing Novak Djokovic (1, Serbia) next. Novak is showing his age, but he’s still better than everyone else. I don’t see any upsets going forward.
I saw a different match earlier in the tournament, where they were deciding if the court was too damp to play. They decided to close the roof. As the roof was closing, the downpour hit, soaking the court. But before the roof was completely closed, bright sunshine peaked through. They kept the roof closed anyway.
It’s interesting to me that they dry the courts using a dozen ball kids with towels. It’s actually the fastest way to dry the court–no machine can do it faster.
Has anyone else noticed the augmented reality advertisements? In the usual end-court view, with the umpire sitting on the right, to the left of the court there is a product placement that looks like it’s painted on the court. But it’s not real; it’s injected into the video. Other angles don’t show it, and it changes from time to time.
I reckon this could happen again today. It’s 3:42pm and the first of four matches on Laver has just gone to the third set.
Before Sinner and Rublev take the court, we have Djokovic-Fritz and Krejcikova-Sabalenka to start and finish.
Zverev was just about to easily knock out Alcaraz in three straight sets, but he began to tighten up near match point and it looks like Alcaraz might come back in this thing.
And indeed, Alcaraz just came back to get it to 1 set to 2.
Zverev will long remember this day if he does lose. It was all but locked up.
Nope, he got the deal done in the 4th set. Alcaraz is out.
Dojovkic has to be relieved. Alcarazy is a real threat to him winning this thing for the 11th(!) time.