Catching Up: Adelaide, Melbourne and Novak Djokovic
Tennis is back in full-swing! Today we're catching up on Murray's loss to Bagnis, Osaka's win over Cornet, Djokovic's medical exemption and Azarenka's rematch with Badosa.
Welcome back everybody!
Did you miss me?
… no?
Fine but you probably missed the tennis! It’s been a long two and a half weeks of off-season to endure but we’re finally back and the tours have hit the ground running.
You’re probably fairly up-to-date on the ATP Cup having listened to the latest podcast episode so I’ll give you the scoop on some of the stories outside of Sydney.
We have:
Victoria Azarenka’s rematch with Paula Badosa
Andy Murray playing a shocker against Facundo Bagnis
Naomi Osaka’s rusty start against Alize Cornet
Novak Djokovic’s medical exemption to play the Australian Open
Enjoy!
Victoria Azarenka’s rematch with Paula Badosa
The biggest title of Paula Badosa’s career came at the Indian Wells Masters last year where she beat Victoria Azarenka in one of the matches of the season - shocking that she’d have to rematch her in the first round of a 500-level event in Adelaide.
Horrendous draw but a brilliant way to get the year started for us fans!
(They’d asked for it last year to be fair…)
How did things play out?
Good Serving necessary for Badosa
Against one of the earlier takers of the return in the game, you’ve got to hit decent serves or the ball will be at your toes before you know it.
Badosa served well in Indian Wells but the speed of the court also mitigated some of her slower serves.
In Adelaide, an aggressive return position is rewarded as the balls fly back to the returner as fast as the serve was received.
The conditions in Adelaide rewarded Azarenka’s returning style more so than they did in Indian Wells - which is why she finished the match winning the majority of Badosa’s service points!
Battle of the Backhands
The battle of the backhands played out differently that it had in Indian Wells.
In California, the pair had traded mighty blows off their backhand wing, Badosa not afraid to finish with a huge down the line winner if necessary (see above).
In Adelaide, again the conditions favoured Azarenka from the back of the court. Flat backhands came flying to Badosa’s backhand (again, see above) and she couldn’t handle the heat1.
When a backhand-to-backhand play was established there was generally only one winner, completely changing the dynamic of the longer rallies from Indian Wells.
5+ shot rallies won in Indian Wells:
Badosa = 64 (58%)
Azarenka = 47 (42%)
5+ shot rallies won in Adelaide:
Badosa = 12 (33%)
Azarenka = 24 (67%)
From Badosa’s forehand finding an edge in the rallies in IW to Azarenka’s backhand allowing her to approach the net in Adelaide, the conditions should continue to play a massive part in this match-up…
Granted, Badosa was a little rusty… Vika played out of her mind for her first match in three months however and will be super dangerous moving forward.
Let’s hope Badosa can tidy up her game for tomorrow!
Andy Murray loses to Facundo Bagnis
Expectations were high.
With help of his new coach, Jan De Witt, Andy Murray had played a fantastic exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi in December, defeating Dan Evans and Rafa fairly emphatically.
There was no sound reason why Andy couldn’t produce the same level against Facundo Bagnis, an Argentinian who had never beaten a top-100 player on a hard-court in his career.
As tennis is, was and always will be, there are days where nothing is clicking.
Here’s what I think went wrong.
Great in Abu Dhabi
In Abu Dhabi, it looked as though De Witt was encouraging Andy to shorten the points.
The serve was brilliant all tournament but in the final against Rublev, he outshone himself - 15 aces in one match, the joint-most in any straight sets best-of-three match of Andy’s career! His favourite serve, the slider out wide in the ad court, was his safety net throughout the tournament.
The forehand was more important. Just as Lendl had encouraged him to do all those years ago, Andy was definitely looking to get a bit more pop on his forehand especially when running around it. It was sublime against Nadal!
Plus, Andy was keen to get to the net but that was a go-to of his throughout 2021.
Shite in Melbourne
All those factors that worked so well in Abu Dhabi fell to pieces against Bagnis, a clay-court Challenger-tour stalwart with a decent rally tempo and a wicked lefty serve.
The serve was definitely worse than it was in Abu Dhabi (the ball toss also caused him problems), though it wasn’t as bad as people might think it was. This wasn’t the main problem…
The forehand was crap! The run-around forehand was nowhere near as good, though he didn’t give himself many chances to play it with a decent preceding forehand. He doesn’t even have the excuse of playing a lefty since he executed this shot so well against Rafa!
From 40-0 3-5 also, he sent three forehands long in a row. He was definitely struggling finding the firepower to counter Bagnis’s steadiness.
Along with this, Andy wasn’t forward anywhere near enough and his break point conversion rate stank, unable to anticipate the direction of Bagnis’s serve in the ad court (he hit it down the T a lot for a lefty).
Back to the drawing board Andy! That’s surely not a bad omen for your season… right?
Naomi Osaka defeats Alize Cornet
After four months off the tour, Naomi Osaka is back2!
How was she playing? It was scrappy but overall actually a pretty good win all things considered.
Cornet can be quite a tricky opponent, a veteran3 capable of changing tactics to deal with her opponent - in this case, Cornet turned counterpuncher to use Osaka’s pace to her advantage (when she could reach the ball…).
No matter in terms of Osaka’s tactics as she went after everything, relying on pure firepower to defeat her nimble opponent - we’re here to talk about how well she executed on her first day back.
Serve: Up and down on the serve. It took a long time for Osaka to start landing serves consistently, eventually ending the match with a woeful first-serve in percentage of 38% (the fourth lowest in a completed match in her career). Good to see the confidence was there, teeing off on some second-serves (even if eight double faults came with them).
Groundstrokes: You know how it is with both of Osaka’s groundstrokes - shoot to kill! Still, the backhand cross-court wasn’t quite as lethal as it usually is, not staying quite as low over the net as per and leaking 24 unforced errors (12 of these 24 BH UEs came from a cross-court backhand attempt).
The forehand wasn’t much steadier at 20 unforced errors but it was much more potent.
Forehand forced errors + winners = 27
Backhand forced errors + winners = 15
The backhand needs some tidying up!
Return: Quality. Obviously something that comes naturally to her as she didn’t put much of a foot wrong after four months without a professional match. Osaka only missed 20% of her returns but ripped every one of them!
Good first match from Osaka given rust definitely played a factor. Land some more first serves, keep ripping returns and tidy up the backhand a little and a title defence could be on the cards in AO…
Novak Djokovic is playing the Australian Open
Novak Djokovic is heading Down Under as the three-time defending champion, (probably) without having been vaccinated.
As expected in tournament director Craig Tiley’s statement on possible exemptions to the tournament, Djokovic has been given permission to play on the grounds of a medical exemption.
From the Australian Goverment’s Department of Health and as summarised by tennis.com, this would (probably) have to be one of the following…
An inflammatory cardiac illness within the past three months.
An acute major medical condition (e.g. undergoing major surgery or hospital admission for a serious illness).
A COVID-19 diagnosis that means vaccination cannot be made for six months.
Any serious effect to a COVID-19 vaccine in the past.
If the vaccine is a risk to themselves or others during the vaccination process.
Underlying developmental or mental health disorders.
Before we get all conspiracy theorist up in here, a statement issued by the Victorian Government claims…
“The personal information of any applicant is redacted to ensure the independence of the process.”
… so the idea a special exemption has been made for a nine-time champion shouldn’t be viable in theory (provided nothing shady has happened during the process). Nonetheless, the speculation on which of these categories Djokovic’s issues fall into will likely run Tennis Twitter riot for the foreseeable.
It’s unlikely Australia will give Novak the warm embrace New York gave him when his Calendar Slam hopes were crumbling…
Without speculating any further myself however - it’ll be good to see Djokovic at the tournament! It would have been a shame not to have him contesting for a historic 21st Grand Slam title.
Let’s hope most aren’t as bitter as Jamie…
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We’ll mainly chalk this down to rust in this match but there’s no doubt Vika’s backhand is more of a weapon than Badosa’s.
Hopefully Osaka is in a good place mentally - she was certainly smiling on-court and was able to share a few laughs with Cornet so she seems to be enjoying herself. I just hope she hasn’t felt any pressure to get back to playing and that she’s made this decision herself.
This is her 17th season on tour! With 59 consecutive GS main draws played, Cornet is close to breaking Ai Sugiyama's all-time WTA record of 62.
I'm with Jamie! Djokovic is an extremely fit & healthy champion tennis player, and very strong, per the President of Serbia & various supporters. I can't imagine a medical condition so dire as to prevent him vaccinating & potentially helping keep all those exposed to him, in whatever setting, safe! He & all the other AO players should understand that they must adhere to the requirements of the country in which they are guests. If "Mr. Entitlement" is allowed to play, I'll be forced to forego one of the great pleasures of my later years, watching the Grand Slams on television, since we're not allowed to travel to watch in person, due to Covid restrictions! I keep thinking this may be the last chance to watch, as I have a couple of underlying health conditions that aren't helpful to my Covid chances, which is mainly why I am so angry at Djokovic & others like him. Selfish, selfish folks.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ARE male tennis champions