👋 Welcome back to The Daily Theory, our morning rundown to help you stay on top of your favorite sport. I’m Allen McDuffee, your guide to all things tennis.
On tap today, we’ve got much Australian Open news: Joao Fonseca the literal walking highlight reel, Emma Radcanu’s doubles, Tsitsipas reflecting, a Draper vs. Kokkinakis preview, and a bunch more.
Let’s tennis!
Four Points
🎾 The highlight reel of a match: Joao Fonseca, the 18-year-old Brazilian who was meant to be a first-year student at the University of Virginia this year, booted 6th seed Andrey Rublev in straight sets in his main draw debut at a major. No envy for the person who had to choose among the 14 aces he knocked down and the 51 winners he cracked to put together the highlights video for this match.
🎾 A stream of double faults: Emma Raducanu returned to tournament play for the first time since September with a new service motion that — at the moment — doesn’t appear to be an improvement. Over the course of 12 service games and two tiebreaks, she served up 15 — nearly four games worth — double faults. She didn’t sugarcoat it: “As more [double faults] kept coming, it was not easy to refocus, but I knew that even if I was down, I have great returns...I’m just very proud that I didn’t let it affect me too much and let the match run away from me.”
🎾 When the wild cards get out of hand: Perhaps when the Asia-Pacific playoff wild card starts going to players ranked in the 400s, it’s time to rethink the value of the Australian Open wild card system. Counterpoint: wild card winner Kasidit Samrej of Thailand, ranked #418 on the ATP Tour rankings, took world #5 Daniil Medvedev (and last year’s finalist) to five sets. So flustered was Medvedev, his racket and the net cam took a beating. But the match highlights are more impressive.
🎾 Pitching in: For nearly three-and-a-half hours, Peyton Stearns displayed some incredible tennis to have a chance at beating world #8 Emma Navarro. That chance came when she was serving for the match at 5-4 in the third set. In heartbreaking fashion, she won just three more points the rest of the match. It was déjà vu for Stearns, who has come this close to beating many top players, including world number one Aryna Sabalenka. If I were on the Peyton Stearns team, I would be enlisting the help of a baseball pitching coach who specializes in working with closers. There’s a mentality shift that needs attention, and a tennis coach might not be the most helpful.
And, that’s game.
What They Said
When I came around in 2018, the game was very different to what it is now. It wasn’t as physical. I’ve had wins over Novak, and I felt like I played well, and I didn’t have to kind of exceed the most extreme version of myself in that particular match. The game has shifted more towards a physical game, the margins are smaller.
-Stefanos Tsitsipas on changes in the game following his loss to Alex Michelsen at the Australian Open.
Watch This!
🔥 Jack Draper vs. Thanasi Kokkinakis (2nd round — Australian Open): There might be 50 spots in the rankings between these two players, but this match-up and this match deserves to be on Rod Laver Arena. Kokkinakis punches well above his ranking when it comes to playing for his country or performing before a home crowd. At the Australian Open, he’ll likely see those as one and the same.
Be ready for truly explosive tennis at both ends of the court that has made for incredibly compelling and dramatic tennis in their previous three meetings. Add in a home-court factor that should make this match that much more tasty. The only question we don’t know the answer to is whether or not they’re both healthy enough to carry out their ends of the bargain.
- The record: Draper leads the head-to-head 2-1, but the Kokkinakis win was the only match on a hard court. All three matches have gone the distance, so expect a battle.
- On the line: Draper desperately wants to show his semifinal run at the U.S. Open wasn’t a fluke and beat his otherwise second-round best at all the other majors. Kokkinakis wants to rock the house. If he does that, he’s sure he’ll win.
Keeping an Eye on...
- Coco Gauff vs. Jodie Burrage (2nd round - Australian Open)
- Casper Ruud vs. Jakub Mensik (2nd round - Australian Open)
- Karolina Muchova vs. Naomi Osaka (2nd round - Australian Open)
- Diana Schnaider vs. Ajla Tomljanovic (2nd round - Australian Open)
- Reilly Opelka vs. Tomas Machac (2nd round - Australian Open)
- Kei Nishikori vs. Tommy Paul (2nd round - Australian Open)
- Ugo Humbert vs. Hady Habib (2nd round - Australian Open)
Learn how to watch today’s action over at Tennis Watchers.
Read, Watch, Listen
- Ben Shelton knows his status as 6th on the ATP Tour for serving and 76th for returning can’t stand if he wants to climb the rankings and compete for majors. But he doesn’t seem too worried at the moment, telling The Athletic that he wasn’t a particularly good junior and he’s learning to play catch up a bit.
- Daria Kasatkina has a new episode of What The Vlog that shows behind the scenes how she’s getting started in Australia.
- The Guardian captures two very different views of the same last-minute lucky loser entry: “I found out about it 10 minutes before the match, so I didn’t have time to get nervous...” vs. “To find out...that I was playing someone completely different, it did rattle me unfortunately.”
- The Australian Open experiment with tennis ball NFTs went dead.
- Growing up, Joao Fonseca idolized Roger Federer. He even tried a one-handed backhand for a whole week.
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