He might have tasted defeat on his Grand Slam debut but Nishesh Basavareddy has earned a lot of new admirers after a four-set loss at the hands of Novak Djokovic.
The 24-time Grand Slam winner was stunned in the first set, dropping it 6-4 after being broken by the American. He recovered, however, to win the next three 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
John McEnroe has been discussing Djokovic ahead of this tournament. The fact he’s working with Andy Murray as his coach is intriguing and many pundits have been predicting whether he can win the Australian Open this time around.
Although it was Djokovic who came through in Melbourne on Monday, the talk was about his opponent. Basavareddy played some excellent tennis and didn’t look overawed to be playing such a legend of the game.
Mats Wilander shares what impressed him about Basavareddy
After the match, much of the talk in the Eurosport studio was on how similar Basavareddy was to Djokovic. The talented 19-year-old showed flashes of brilliance during the first set and a half with his game on point.
Wilander won nine Grand Slam titles during his career. He claimed three each in Australia and France, before also winning the US Open in 1988.
He believes there was a lot to like about the performance of Basavareddy. Wilander thinks there is even one shot that the player is better at right now than Djokovic was when he was 19.
He said: “First impression was brilliant. The technique was similar to Novak’s. The forehand was very similar. A better forehand than Novak had when Novak was at his age, because Novak struggled with his forehand early on.
“He moves well enough. He needs to get a little bit stronger. His serve technically I thought was good enough. So he has a bright future and another American youngster. The Americans are coming, that’s for sure.”
Who Novak Djokovic faced in Grand Slam debut
You have to go all the way back to 2005 to discover the first time Djokovic took part in a Grand Slam event – and it didn’t go well for the Serbian star.
Djokovic came through a gruelling qualifying campaign before meeting the world number four at the time, Marat Safin where he was resoundingly beaten in straight sets.
Remarkable, Djokovic only won three games and was dismantled 6-0, 6-2, 6-1 by the huge-serving Russian who would go on and lift the trophy that year, beating Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt along the way.
With that in mind, Basavareddy can take heart from this defeat to Djokovic. He wasn’t fazed by coming up against arguably the best player ever and with an easier draw in the future there’s hope he can make waves as a major event.
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