Australian Open Recap: Day One
On a beautiful day in Melbourne Park action got underway at the years first Grand Slam. Day One saw a few of the seeded players pushed to the brink (Nicolas Almagro, Fernando Verdasco) were extended to five sets and Julia Goerges three sets. In the end though the only seed to fall was 11th seeded Juan Monaco who lost in straight sets to Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia 6-7, 1-6, 1-6.
WINNERS (Seeded Players): Men’s singles: No. 1 Novak Djokovic, No. 5 Tomas Berdych, No. 10 Nicolas Almagro, No. 15 Stanislas Wawrinka, No. 16 Kei Nishikori, No. 22 Fernando Verdasco, No. 26 Jurgen Melzer, No. 32 Julien Benneteau.
Women’s singles (Seeded Players): No. 2 Maria Sharapova, No. 4 Agnieska Radwanska, No. 6 Li Na, No. 9 Sam Stosur, No. 11 Marion Bartoli, No. 15 Dominika Cibulkova, No. 18 Julia Gorges, No. 19 Ekaterina Makarova, No. 22 Jelena Jankovic, No. 23 Klara Zakopalova, No. 25 Venus Williams, No. 27 Sorana Cirstea, No. 30 Tamira Paszek.
LOSERS: Men’s singles: No. 11 Juan Monaco.
STAT OF THE DAY: 15 – number of consecutive matches won by Djokovic at Melbourne Park; his last loss here being in the 2010 quarterfinals to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
QUOTE OF THE DAY – ”Hello everybody it’s great to be back” – Djokovic greets crowd at Rod Laver Arena after his win over Paul-Henri Mathieu.
WEATHER: Sunny, breezy with a high temperature of 72 degrees.
ATTENDANCE: Day session: 44,927
IN ACTION ON TUESDAY: No. 2 Roger Federer vs. Benoit Paire, No. 3 Andy Murray vs. Robin Haase; No. 1 and defending champion Victoria Azarenka vs. Monica Niculescu, No. 3 Serena Williams vs. Edina Gallovits-Hall.
