One of the favorites for the title at the Australian Open, German Alexander Zverev and Belarusian Arina Sabalenka started with victories on Sunday, but without real brilliance.
Zverev, who faced a difficult match against the Canadian Gabriel Diallo (No. 41 in the world), dropped the first set before dominating the rest of the match to win 6-7 (1/7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-2.
I couldn’t play worse in the first set. I was not happy when I saw the draw because Diallo is a very talented and very aggressive playersaid the German, third in the world, who is still looking for his first Grand Slam title at the age of 28.
From the second set onwards, I was hitting forehands betterI returned better, I was more aggressive. I know it’s my game, I don’t need 58 experts or thousands of Germans to tell me that at every tournamentadded Zverev, who will face either Frenchman Alexandre Müller (52nd) or Australian Alexei Popyrin (50th) in the next round.
The first evening session at the Rod Laver Arena then started with Sabalenkothe convincing favorite in the women’s tournament, who intends to win for the third time.
It took her 1 hour and 16 minutes to defeat France’s Tiantsou Rakotomanga, ranked 118th and a wild card winner, 6-4, 6-1 for a comfortable but not spectacular victory.
I didn’t have a great startwhile she, on the contrary, played very well from the very beginning. It was a tough match for me at the beginning of the tournament, so I’m happy to finish it in two setscommented the 27-year-old Belarusian woman.
On her way to a fourth consecutive final in Melbourne, a feat only accomplished by Martina Hingis, Sabalenka will face either the Russian in the second round Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (44th on the WTA list) or with a Chinese woman Zhuoxuan Bai (702nd in the ranking list of qualifiers).
The first day of the tournament was marked by the marathon victory of the Frenchwoman Elsa Jacquemot (WTA-60th) against Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk (WTA -20th) in her first Grand Slam appearance.
Jacquemot fought for 3 hours and 31 minutes before winning 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (10/7) in three tie-breaks.
Turkish tennis player Zeynep Sonmez advanced to the second round of the Australian Open in Melbourne, after defeating world number 11 Ekaterina Aleksandrova from Russia in three sets, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.
Sonmez, ranked 112 in the world, won after two hours and 37 minutes of play.
(Hina | Photo: X)
