Saturday, January 20, 2018

2018 AUS OPEN: First Week Complete



Well! The first week of the 2018 Australian Open is complete which means there are 16 players left in the men's and women's draws.

Women's Draw
The first big upset f the tournament happened on Day 1 when 2017 finalist Venus Williams lost to Belinda Bencic in straight sets. Bencic is a former Top 10 player and this was expected to be a bad matchup for Venus. Other upsets were #3 seed Garbine Muguruza losing to Su-Wei Hsieh (who then followed that up by ousting Agnieska Radwanska in the most entertaining match of the tournament).

The remaining Top 10 players in the Round of 16 are Simona Halep [1] (who played the match of the tournament by outlasting American Lauren Davis 6-4 4-6 15-13 in 3 hours 45 minutes), Caroline Wozniacki [2] (who survived a 5-1 deficit in the 3rd set of her 2nd round match against Jana Fett by winning the final six games), Elina Svitolina [4], Karolina Pliskova [6] and Caroline Garcia [8]. However, the most dangerous player in the draw is probably 2016 Australian Open champion Angie Kerber (who demolished 5-time major champion Maria Sharapova 6-1 6-3 to reach the 4th round).

Men's Draw
The top seeds are still in the draw after 3 rounds of play: Rafael Nadal [1], Roger Federer [2], Grigor Dimitrov [3], Dominc Thiem [5], Marin Cilic [6] and Pablo Carreno Busta [10]. The #4 seed Sascha Zverev lost to Korean Hyeon Chung in a battle of #NextGen stars. The only big upset (of sorts) in the men's draw was the defeat of 2014 Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka in the second round, coming back after knee surgery and 6-months absence from the ATP tour.

R16 Highlights
The upcoming matches which look interesting are Nick Kyrgios versus Dimitrov, Halep versus Naomi Osaka and Madison Keys versus Garcia.

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