👋 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: the Djokovic-Murray partnership is under the microscope, the women’s singles final, a disappointed Ben Shelton, plus more Australian Open news.

Let’s tennis!

Four Points

🎾 Booed in Australia, again: Novak Djokovic was booed after retiring from his semifinal match against Alexander Zverev. “People have come and paid for the tickets expecting a great match and a big fight, which they didn’t get. From that perspective, I can understand. I am doing my best to understand them, but I am not sure whether they understand me or if they even want to,” said Djokovic following his retirement. Booing players has gotten a bit out of control at majors in recent years, most notably in France where your big crime might be nothing more than not being...French. Australia is not far behind. Perhaps that’s just reserved for Djokovic.

🎾 Under review: The Andy Murray-Novak Djokovic partnership isn’t a guaranteed thing, apparently. Per Murray, the two are set for a post-AO evaluation: “Me and Novak agreed that after the tournament we would speak. We’ll do that.” Reaching the semifinals before having to retire with an injury isn’t a bad first outing. But for a player who has incredibly high standards, will that be considered enough?

🎾 Hits hard: Ben Shelton knew that if any opportunity came his way in his semifinal match against Jannik Sinner, he had to take advantage of it. But he didn’t. “Honestly, really disappointed,” said Shelton after the match. “You know going into the match that playing Jannik is a tough ask. For me, I’ve made my living on tour so far serving out sets. Having two set points on my serve, at 6-5, I feel like uncharacteristic for me not to come through and win that.” He added: “Obviously you’re playing the number one player in the world, the chances, the windows are always small. Sometimes you miss your window, and the guy steps up his level, starts making a lot more first serves, playing better. The break chances don’t come as often.”

🎾 Taylor wants another major: Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova won their semifinal doubles match, giving the pair a chance to win a second major together in just half a year. “It’s a first for me, and that’s a pretty cool experience to be able to be on tour for 12 years and still have firsts,” Townsend said, adding, “One of the things I can say with full confidence is we’re playing better as a team over the last couple of weeks than we were doing a couple of months ago.” In other words: watch out, Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko!