Australia’s top hope at the 2024 Australian Open, No.10 seed Alex de Minaur, earned a big win before he even got on the court for his first round match. Live updates below!
The Aussie faces former world No.3 Milos Raonic in a potentially dangerous tournament opener to begin the night session on Rod Laver Arena.
De Minaur is favoured given Raonic has played very little tennis over the last few years but the big-serving Canadian, at his best, could cause the Sydneysider trouble.
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If de Minaur wins tonight he will face Matteo Arnaldi in the second round, in another dangerous match given the young Italian’s rise over the last 12 months, but again the Aussie should be favoured.
But the biggest result for de Minaur came earlier on Monday when Nicolas Jarry became the first seed knocked out of the men’s singles, the No.18 seed falling to Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli in five sets.
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Jarry was the seeded player drawn to face de Minaur in the third round; his loss means de Minaur cannot play a seed until the fourth round. And even that match is looking easier now, with No.5 Andrey Rublev and No.29 Seb Korda both needing to survive five-set thrillers to escape the first round.
Jarry suffered a bizarre meltdown after copping a rarely-seen penalty at the climax of the fifth set, on serve at 3-0 and 5-6 as a match tiebreaker loomed large – but during the next point, a ball fell from his pocket.
Since it was the second time in the match that a ball had fallen loose from Jarry’s shorts, he was handed a code violation by the umpire.
The umpire initially called a let before quickly updating the call, saying: “Let, no, loss of point – second time the ball has fallen out of the pocket. Point to Cobolli.”
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Jarry quickly collapsed, with a trio of horror errors seeing him give away the match – and leading to him slamming a racquet into the court.
Italian fans went wild in celebration as Cobolli lifted his fingers to his ears, calling for them to further turn up the volume, after the 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 win in just under five hours. He’ll face Russia’s Pavel Kotov in the second round.
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NIGHT 2 ORDER OF PLAY (Show courts & Aussies in action)
From 7pm AEDT, unless listed
ROD LAVER ARENA
No.10 Alex de Minaur (AUS) vs Milos Raonic (CAN)
No.16 Caroline Garcia (FRA) vs Naomi Osaka (JPN)
MARGARET COURT ARENA
No.6 Ons Jabeur (TUN) vs Yuliia Starodubtseva (UKR)
No.27 Felix Auger-Aliassime (CAN) vs Dominic Thiem (AUT)
JOHN CAIN ARENA
Not before 5pm: Omar Jasika (AUS) vs No.9 Hubert Hurkacz (POL)
OTHER AUSSIES IN ACTION
Court 3, Match 3: Aleksandar Vukic (AUS) vs Jordan Thompson (AUS)
Court 3, Match 4: Rinky Hijikata (AUS) vs No.24 Jan-Lennard Struff (GER)
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