Key events
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Third seed Coco Gauff has made her entrance onto Rod Laver Arena ready for her blockbuster first round match against 2020 champion Sofia Kenin. Gauff won all five matches at the United Cup in Perth recently, without dropping a set, continuing her excellent end to 2024, that concluded with WTA Finals glory.
Gauff is in Aryna Sabalenka’s quarter of the draw setting up the prospect of a mouthwatering semi-final towards the end of next week.
Stefanos Tsitsipas reached the final here in 2023, and made three semi-finals in the four years before that. His form has nosedived since, plummeting from third in the world to 12th, with only two tournament victories in that time.
He has the full throated support of Melbourne’s massive Greek community out on John Cain Arena this morning, but he has his work cut out against 20-year-old rising star Alex Michelsen who has vaulted from 601 in the world to 41st in just two years.
It’s currently on serve in the opening set.
Coco Gauff is in action in about 15 minutes, leading the charge for an emerging younger breed of US grand slam contenders.
Since her much-discussed break with coach Brad Gilbert after her disappointing US Open performance (losing to fellow American Emma Navarro, who is the eighth seed in Australia), Gauff’s record is an extraordinary 18-2 since the US Open. With new coach Matt Daly, Gauff has ironed out much of the issues with her forehand and serve and is playing a brand of highly confident tennis. Further, the fact that Gauff is one of the fastest players on tour and possesses a very strong mindset makes her somewhat upset-proof in the bigger events.
Today’s weather forecast is much more promising that yesterday. The temperature is in the mid-20s, it’s muggy but dry, and it should remain that way for most of the day. Any isolated showers passing through on the gentle southerly breeze are unlikely to linger for long.
Some fog & low cloud to start the day across the south, then warming up with the chance of afternoon showers or storms for much of #Vic today, possibly severe in the east. pic.twitter.com/sOOx7FQDLb
— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) https://twitter.com/BOM_Vic/status/1878552452221342068?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The most interesting story from yesterday’s play was the success of Hady Habib, the first Lebanese tennis player to win a match at a grand slam. Tumaini Carayol has more:
Habib’s trailblazing success is even more significant considering it has come at a time of war in his country. The past year has been a period of unimaginable pain for many Lebanese people as the country continues to pick up the pieces following Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion of Lebanon, which have killed nearly 4,000 people, destroyed whole towns and villages, and displaced more than a million people.
With Habib’s parents, other family and friends still living in Lebanon, he has spent much of the past year glued to his phone every morning as he has tried to check that his loved ones were all OK. His success has provided an unlikely source of inspiration for Lebanese people. “It’s a huge win, especially what we’ve been going through as a country,” he said. “I think to bring something positive, especially, we’ve been having a rough time with the war. We had our other issues in the past. It’s just nice to get this win for Lebanon and for the people.”
Preamble
Jonathan Howcroft
Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of the second day’s play at the 2025 Australian Open. Action kicked off on the outside courts of Melbourne Park at 11am sharp local time, while the stadium courts welcome some of the sport’s biggest stars from 11.30am.
I’ll be focusing on the daytime matches for now, ahead of a jam-packed evening session which features Nick Kyrgios, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Naomi Osaka.
A selection of the first round singles matches we’ll be paying close attention to during the day session include:
11:00am: Stefanos Tsitsipas (11) v Alex Michelsen
11:30am: Coco Gauff (3) v Sofia Kenin
1:30pm: Iga Swiatek (2) v Katerina Siniakova
2:00pm: Jannik Sinner (1) v Nicolas Jarry
Other names to keep an eye out for include a stack of home hopes: Ajla Tomljanovic, Jordan Thompson, Talia Gibson, James Duckworth, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Christopher O’Connell, Destanee Aiava, James McCabe, Tristan Schoolkate, and Aleksandar Vukic.
While plenty of other interesting seeded players get their tournaments underway, including American challengers Tommy Paul (12) and Frances Tiafoe (17), rising British contender Jack Draper (15), and former champion Victoria Azarenka (21).
There are also a couple of intriguing match-ups featuring unseeded players with serious CVs, specifically Olympic gold medallist Belinda Bencic v 16th seed Jelena Ostapenko, and Italian veteran Fabio Fognini v 10th seed Grigor Dimitrov.
It’s going to be a job keeping up with it all, so feel free to nudge me in the direction of something interesting as it unfolds. The address is [email protected] for all correspondence.
Hopefully today’s action is an improvement on yesterday’s thin gruel. Day one patrons were not favoured either by the schedulers or the weather, with little of note occurring inside the major arenas and six hours of play lost to wild storms on the outside courts.
