12 months ago Roger Federer was making his official return to tennis at the Australian Open after six months out. Seeded #17, the Swiss man found himself on Rod Laver Arena (RLA) every match en route to his fifth title. This year, however, six-time champion Novak Djokovic is also making his return to tennis after six months out and starts his campaign on Margaret Court Arena (MCA) and not RLA. Despite being seeded 14th, higher than Federer was last year, if we further look into the circumstances and comparisons to last year’s event it’s not a great showing from the Australian Open organizers.
Last year Federer was in Andy Murray’s (then-World #1) and Stan Wawrinka’s half. Like Federer, Murray also got Rod Laver Arena in the first round while 2014 champion and World #4 Stan Wawrinka was thrown onto Margaret Court Arena. This year the two highest seeds in Djokovic’s half are Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev. Expectedly, the defending champion and 19-time Grand Slam champion opens on Rod Laver Arena, but so does Zverev, a man who’s never even made a Grand Slam quarterfinal.
What makes this somewhat more funny is if you look into the opponents both Wawrinka and Federer had last year in the early rounds. Roger Federer opened his Australian Open campaign against Jurgen Melzer, ranked #300 in the world, and Noah Rubin in the second round, ranked #200. Meanwhile, the World #4 started off against World #34 and #30, Martin Klizan and Steve Johnson, two far more dangerous players.
Clearly, the organizers were happy to put the champion of just three years earlier and World #4 on MCA, even against more or less the best unseeded players in the draw. All of this just to put a four-time champion who hadn’t progressed past the semifinals in seven years on RLA. Which brings up the question of how and why they aren’t pushing Zverev (a man who’s never even made the last 16 here) onto MCA to make room for a man who’s won six Australian Opens with five coming in the last seven years.
Looking into their opponents it only gets stranger. Whilst both Djokovic’s and Zverev’s aren’t ranked inside the top 50 at #63 and #72 there’s a huge gulf in the accomplishments of both. Donald Young, the Serb’s opponent, has had three wins against top ten players with a career high ranking of #38 with 121 wins on tour. On the other hand, Alexander Zverev’s opponent, Italian Thomas Fabbiano, has won nine matches on tour–that’s right, just nine, whilst also never making a tour semifinal. It’s not exactly as if Zverev is up against a very dangerous unseeded player capable of huge upsets to justify a RLA billing.
Honestly, it’s not uncommon seeing Novak Djokovic get the short end of the stick when it comes to scheduling in Grand Slams; we often see it at Wimbledon year after year. But for an event he’s won more than anyone else in the Open Era, the Australian Open are simply being disrespectful. We’ve known for years how they’ve always favored Roger Federer, just check out their social media accounts, but just when you think they can’t keep one upping themselves they somehow find a way to do so.
Main Photo:
Embed from Getty Images
