The Australian Open is lame

Without Novak Djokovic already in the tournament, the Australian Open draw is left touched. The decision to deport him came with the order of play already out of the oven, so the seedings were not replaced, but a ‘lucky loser’ was put in the Serb’s place, that is, a tennis player who lost in the previous phase. The winner was the Italian Salvatore Caruso, number 150 in the world and who will serve for the first time in his career as the first seed of the Australian Open. A patch that, however; it tarnishes the tournament and reduces its quality. In the first quadrant, the best ranked tennis player is Matteo Berrettini, number seven in the world, who has a practically flat path to reach the quarterfinals.

This also benefits tennis players who were in the same half as Djokovic, as is the case with Rafa Nadal, who will no longer face the Serb in a hypothetical semifinal. If the ruling of the trial had been known before the start of the order of play, Djokovic’s position would have been occupied by the Russian Andrey Rublev, fifth seed, which would have resulted in a more balanced draw.

Now Daniil Medvedev, champion of the past US Open, remains the top favorite to lift the title at the Rod Laver Arena on January 30. And he could, incidentally, take the world number one from Djokovic. The Serbian accumulates 80 consecutive weeks at the top, since February 3, 2020, but he will lose 2,000 points by not being able to defend last year’s title.

Medvedev, a finalist in 2021, amassed 1,200 points, so he could add 800 more to his collection. The sum of points that separates them is 2,080, so the one from Moscow has a real opportunity to climb to the top of the ATP ranking for the first time in his career. It would stop Djokovic’s mark of 357 weeks, which far exceeds Nadal (209 weeks) and Federer (310) and, in addition, he would become the first tennis player other than Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Andy Murray to be number one since he was Andy Roddick in February 2004.

For Djokovic this is the second Grand Slam of his career that he has missed, after making his debut in Australia in 2005. Since then, the Serb has only missed the US Open in 2017 due to an elbow injury. His streak of 17 consecutive appearances in Australia is broken and the possibility of being the most awarded in the history of the Grand Slams is postponed. Nor will Belgrade be able to approach the legendary mark of Margaret Court, who won eleven Australian Opens between 1960 and 1973, halfway between the amateur era and the Open Era.