After a week of blistering heat in Melbourne, rain began tumbling as the specifics of the Australian Open draw were unveiled on Friday and dark clouds also descended on the hopes of many a local contender. The busiest Australians in week two of this tournament tend to be the ball kids and that might not change much in 2017.
Injury concerns have for a week now chipped away at the plausibility of world No14 Nick Kyrgios going deep in the season’s opening grand slam and his possible date with Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round should provide plenty of challenges too. En route Kyrgios will meet Portugal’s Gastao Elias, and then either of the wily veterans Andreas Seppi and Paul-Henri Mathieu.
Fellow provocateur Bernard Tomic – not exactly firing on all cylinders right now – has the likes of possible third-round rival Marin Cilic, plus Joe-Wilfried Tsonga and Jack Sock to contend with once he’s past Brazilian baseliner Thomaz Bellucci. Don’t count on all of that going his way.
The freshest face among the local pack is 16-year-old Destanee Aiava from Melbourne’s south-eastern suburb of Narre Warren – whose last teenager of national prominence was professional party animal Corey Worthington. Aiava is a little more level-headed, and won’t be the country’s eighth-ranked women’s candidate for long if he keeps peeling off wins like her Brisbane International victory over American Bethanie Mattek-Sands last week.
For now Aiava’s in that priceless, innocent phase in which it’s still a novelty to be asked for a selfie, or have a practice hit with her hero Serena Williams, and she’ll have only a qualifier to deal with in the first round. But Monica Puig lurks after. Anything positive from here is a bonus for the tournament’s youngest player.
Perhaps Australia’s most intriguing prospect is Alex De Minaur, Sydney-born to Spanish and Uruguayan parents, raised primarily in Alicante, Spain, but firm in his commitment to representing Australia. The 17-year-old goes by the nickname “Demon”, and with a current world ranking of 333 has at least half the devil in him. Skinny and not particularly tall, De Minaur might be mistaken for a ball boy, but he was a 2016 junior finalist at Wimbledon and deserved his wildcard to face Austrian Gerald Melzer.
At the other end of the cynicism scale from De Minaur and Aiava lies veteran Samantha Stosur, ranked 21 in the world but by no means Australia’s best prospect of a lengthy stay in the women’s draw. In her opening match of the Brisbane International, Stosur stumbled from a 4-2 lead in the third set to a 7-5 loss against world No7 Garbine Muguruza. She’s never progressed beyond the second in her home city. Perhaps she’d be a world-beater if nobody was allowed to watch.
Never far from some new calamity, Stosur will contend with Great Britain’s Heather Watson first up at Melbourne Park, and there follows Russia’s Elena Vesnina and third seed Agnieszka Radwanska. Forghedaboudit.
Better placed is world No25 Daria Gavrilova. The 22-year-old represented Russia until 2015 but now calls Australia home and favours the hard court surfaces at Melbourne, where she made a stirring run to the fourth round last time around. She’ll be less daunted first up by another Brit, Naomi Broady.
From there it’s a big fall away to Australia’s third-ranked women’s contender, Arina Rodionova, also Russian-born and currently 191st in the WTA rankings. She has job on her hands against 17th seed Caroline Wozniacki. Of greater interest is the returning Ashleigh Barty, who fell out of love with tennis a few years ago and switched to a team sport in the form Big Bash cricket, but returns now and at the age of 20, still has plenty of decent tennis ahead of her.
The question is whether a shoulder injury Barty picked up in her aborted singles run at the Hobart International will hamper her, and she faces 53rd-ranked German Annika Beck to start with before a possible date with fourth seed Simone Halep.
Third-ranked of Australia’s men and quietly achieving as the bigger names hog the headlines is Jordan Thompson, No79 in the ATP rankings now and an Australian representative at 2016’s Rio Olympics. Thompson won four Challenger titles last year and reached the second round at Roland Garros, but he’s misfired at the first hurdle in each of his last three Australian Open campaigns. He’s drawn wily Joao Souza this time.
Established now as something of cult hero of the exhibition courts, 24-year-old Sydneysider James Duckworth has reached the second round at Melbourne Park three out of the last five years. He can actually hang in there against top players – defeating world No8 Dominic Thiem in 2015 – though has won only five of his 14 grand slam singles matches and, remarkably, none of his seven doubles encounters. He’s got Paulo Lorenzi in round one.
Riding his momentum to a career-high ranking of 53 and the Newcombe Medal in 2015, big-serving Sam Groth promptly suffered a nightmare season last year, failing to recover as quick as he’d hoped from foot surgery and sliding down the rankings. Groth was reliant on a wildcard for this year’s first major tournament, and arrives with no pressure on him as he encounters Steve Darcis.
In the same boat is Andrew Whittington against Czech Adam Pavlasek. Of the other men’s wildcards, Omar Jasika cops man-machine David Ferrer, while Chris O’Connell gets world No15 Grigor Dimitrov.
Unlucky in all this is injury-plagued Thanasi Kokkinakis, whose name is now a byword for physiotherapy. Again he’ll miss his home grand slam after managing only a single match in 2016. This Australian Open might not be remembered as a vintage year for any of his countrymen either.
