There is a peculiar smell in the air in Melbourne. It’s not just the smell of Summer, it’s something more typical, more subtle: it’s the smell of tennis.
The city has woken up this week after the Christmas nap, the CBD bustling again with professionals; also the rest of the city is crowding up … a plethora of players, coaches, journalists, and tennis fans, all ready for edition 105 of the Australian Open, which is beginning today with the men’s qualifying tournament.
Free trams to get to Melbourne Park, all must look shiny and bright and beautiful. And so the police raids the CBD – especially near the central Flinder’s street station, to get rid of homeless camping in the neighbourhood. While it is not illegal to be homeless or sleep rough on the streets of Melbourne, it is illegal to camp in a public place. Despite denying any connection with the Australian Open, the coincidence is staggering.
While the big names are playing in Sydney, or taking turns to practice at the Rod Laver Arena, there is a lot of movement in the outer courts, fighting to death to grab one of the 6 spots available for the main draw. The day is sunny with a mild temperature and fresh breeze. Do you need anything more?
The biggest contingent comes from the USA with 16 players: 10 of them proceed to the second round, notably seed n.2 Tiafoe after a scare with Italian Cecchinato (6-3, 5-7, 7-5), Fratangelo (6-4, 7-6 over Zemlja from Slovenja), baby-Isner Opelka (7-5, 6-3 over Italian Napolitano), while surprisingly Kozlov (seed n.7, runner up in the junior tournament in 2014) lost in straight sets (6-1, 6-4) to Indian Bhambri.
Five out of 13 Australian players move to the second round: young Blake Mott and Brad Mousley (I always enjoy watching him playing), Alex Bolt, not-so-young Matthew Ebden and John-Patrick Smith. Marinko Matosevic on a not-so-slow and inexorable decline, is out losing to Carballes Baena in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 as is Luke Saville who never managed to really make it in the ATP circuit, after winning a junior Wimbledon: now is mostly known to be Aussie rising star Daria Gavrilova’s boyfriend.
No.3 seed Jozef Kovalik was today’s biggest casualty, defeated in straight sets 6-3 6-3 by Marco Trungelliti from Argentina. Also the Canadian Pospisil fell 3-6 6-3 6-4 to the Belarussian Ignatik.
A final note for 38 years old Stepanek, top seed of the qualies, who survived a scare from American Bangoura (n.257) and regained focus after losing the second set, to move on to the next round where he’ll face the Slovenian Kavcic.
Tomorrow the women’s qualifying tournament starts with the first four seeds being Swiss Voegele, German Maria, Kai-Chen Chang from Taipei and American Brady. For different reasons, I am looking forward to see Bethanie Mattek-Sands (difficult match against Soler-Espinosa from Spain, n.10) and Daniela Hantuchova (vs n.13 Vikhlyantseva from Russia).
From Melbourne – Robbie Cappuccio
