Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic, current champion and world number one, solved his second match at the Australian Open on Wednesday with work, the first ‘Grand Slam’ of the season, after winning in four sets (6-3, 6- 7, 7-6 and 6-3) to American Francis Tiafoe.
Accustomed to overwhelming almost always in his first duels of the ‘greats’, the Belgrade man ran into a tough rival in the American, with whom he had to ‘battle’ for three and a half hours to avoid any hint of surprise.
‘Nole’ always gave the feeling of having the duel under control, but this was complicated after letting a second set escape in the ‘sudden death’ where he could not break the serve of his rival. In the third, the Belgrade player was able to get into trouble as he missed a break and a 3-0 lead and again had to play a tie-break, which he came out the winner to end Tiafoe’s resistance. that lasted until the middle of the fourth quarter.
Djokovic, who will now face another American ‘gunner’ like Taylor Fritz for a place in the round of 16, finished the match with 56 winners, 26 of them through direct aces, and 37 unforced errors.
Less problems had the Austrian Dominic Thiem, finalist last year, against the German Dominik Koepfer. The third favorite won in three sets (6-4, 6-0, 6-2) in one hour and 40 minutes without giving up his serve and supported by 34 winners. In his next match he will have a tough test against Nick Kyrgios, who eliminated in five sets (5-7, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 6-4) the Frenchman Ugo Humbert, who had two match balls with his serve 5-4 up in the fourth.
For its part, in the women’s draw the big favorites did not fail and Simona Halep, Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams qualified for the third round, with many problems for the Romanian who needed all three sets (4-6, 6-4, 7 -5) to get rid of the Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, who wasted 5-2 in the third and final set, without even being able to have a match ball.
On the other hand, the Japanese tennis player, champion in 2019 and third favorite, beat a dangerous player such as the French Caroline Garcia (6-2, 6-3) with authority and the American did not give options to the Serbian Nina Stojanovic (6-3). , 6-0).
