We’re by Week One of many first main of the 12 months. The defending males’s champ is out, faraway from the draw (and the nation) by the Australian Minister for Immigration. The defending girls’s champ is out, KO’d by a resurgent 20-year-old American. Rafa Nadal is 12 units from turning into the males’s all-time majors singles winner. Ash Barty is eight units from turning into the primary Aussie for the reason that Seventies to win the singles title. We’ve got a serve-and-volleying dervish, a transparent prime American male, a resurgent Simona Halep and a second-seed who could lead the sphere in double-faults however nonetheless retains successful. Tennis gonna tennis.
Herewith, our midterm grades from the 2022 Australian Open:
A
Amanda Anisimova: A Week Two participant in Melbourne three years in the past at age 17, she has retreated after household tragedy. She’s again within the largest manner, taking out Naomi Osaka, slugging the ball, serving higher than ever, trying like a future main champ … and smiling.
Rafa Nadal: Right here’s a scandalously under-the-radar storyline: One participant is 12 units away from turning into the all-time majors winner within the males’s division. And the French is subsequent. How the plot twists; how the plot thickens.
Ash Barty: It’s been greater than 40 years since an Aussie received. If the highest seed continues at this stage, that can finish on Saturday. As of this writing she’s gone 57 video games with out a break of serve and surrendered eight video games in her first three assignations.
Max Cressy: He simply retains coming ahead.
The boys’s faves: Daniil Medvedev (winner of the earlier main) and Alexander Zverev have but to be touched.
Madison Parvenu: Keys is cruising into spherical 4. Aussie wild card (Maddison – two D’s) Inglis reached spherical three. Delaware’s Brengle received the craziest match of the 12 months.
Taylor Fritz: Establishing himself because the clear-cut American male.
WTA: There was a lot dangerous information for tennis currently—the Djokovic debacle, the American TV protection debacle—however because of Malcolm Gladwell for reminding the world about this. And by the best way: #WhereIsPengShuai?
Sam Stosur: Closed out a profession—a singles profession, anyway—with a high quality win and spirited loss. Subsequent cease: the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame?
Nick Kyrgios/Thanasi Kokkinakis: The Aussie mates took out the highest seeds in doubles, Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic.
Chris Evert: The expression “By no means meet your heroes”? She splinters that. As cool and personable and regular as you observed she is. Want her properly.
Netflix Venture: One other story overshadowed by L’Affaire Djokovic. If the WTA and ATP aren’t merging per se, they’re working collectively like by no means earlier than, realizing {that a} sport the place women and men play concurrently and court docket the identical base is an actual asset.
B+
Emma Raducanu: Fell within the second spherical to Danka Kovinic, a loss largely attributable to a hand blister. However she beat one other former U.S. champ within the first spherical in Sloane Stephens and leaves in a greater place than she arrived.
Naomi Osaka: The final time she misplaced in a serious, she was excruciatingly sad. This time, she competed gamely and emerged filled with perspective and self-possession.
B
Andy Murray: Knocked out a seeded participant in spherical one (Nikoloz Basilashvili) however went out meekly to sub-100 Taro Daniel in his subsequent match.
Thanasi Kokkinakis in singles: Already a candidate for story of the 12 months, the favored, oft-injured Aussie wins his first title in Adelaide … after which, 36 hours later and depleted in reserves, loses in spherical one to a qualifier.
Tereza Martincova: Fell in spherical two. But when there’s a Best Tennis Body Art division, we’ve a winner.
Nick Kyrgios in singles: The embodiment of the sports activities cliché “it’s what it’s.” He’s undeniably gifted and entertaining. However till/until he commits himself extra totally, he’s incapable of creating a dent as a participant unseeded in a best-of-five occasion.
C
Novak Djokovic: Loads of doorsteps on which to put blame for this mess, but it surely begins with him and ends with him. You surprise, really, if he has any clue how he’s perceived broadly. Or if he’s so siloed by toadies and loyalists and social media bots that he thinks he’s nonetheless the righteous seeker. Right here’s a pep discuss: Get the rattling vaccine and get again to the enterprise of successful Majors. You’re too good—and have carried out an excessive amount of good—for this.
Garbiñe Muguruza: The winner of two majors and the 2021 WTA Finals scarcely mounted resistance —i.e. didn’t get to a single break level—in a mystifyingly vacant loss to Alize Cornet.
Dayana Yastremska: Misplaced her first match to Madison Brengle 6–1, 0–6, 5–0. Sorry, gotta end that out.
Tv protection within the U.S.: The definition of an unforced error. And that is totally on Tennis Australia for the money seize. One can solely hope that that is corrected in 2022. There’s no higher option to kill off a sport than making it tough, if not unattainable, for followers to search out.
Right here’s an ESPN assertion on the protection that has pissed off so lots of you:
Final [Wednesday] night time, a mix of things led to sure matches being unavailable on ESPN+. A kind of matches—Fritz vs. Tiafoe—ought to have been lined stay in full on certainly one of our platforms. We’ve got addressed the problem and our plan is to make sure all matches can be found stay going ahead. The mix of ESPN+ and our networks, together with ESPN3, will increase our means to ship complete protection of tennis majors and produce extra tennis to followers.
