Day 3 at the Australian Open was inevitably highlighted by Rafael Nadal’s shocking defeat against Mackenzie McDonald, who got by far the biggest win of his career. Aside from Nadal, all the top seeds advanced, with Daniil Medvedev now the favorite to make it to the final from this half but several other players who will fancy their chances of making it all the way.
Australian Open Men’s Day 3 Recap
Who looked good
Daniil Medvedev has only lost 12 games so far in Melbourne and looks in great form. John Millman is always a potentially dangerous opponent, but Medvedev dealt with him rather easily and showed that he is capable of reaching a third consecutive Australian Open final.
Stefanos Tsitsipas tends to play very well in Australia, having reached two consecutive semifinals and three in the last four years. So far he’s looking capable of having another deep run; although Rinky Hijikata isn’t exactly the toughest of opponents, Tsitsipas looked impressive and dropped only five games on his way to the third round.
Jannick Sinner was very consistent at Grand Slam level last year, despite always hitting a ceiling at the quarterfinal stage and he looks set to at least maintain that consistency. His performances in the first round two rounds wery highly impressive and he goes into the third round while hardly breaking a sweat.
Who looked bad
All-time Grand Slam record holder and defending champion Rafael Nadal looked absolutely terrible against Mackenzie McDonald; as well as the latter played, Nadal was a shadow of the player who won the title in this very venue last year. You can never write out such a great champion, especially with the clay season and Roland Garros coming up, but his performance was certainly extremely worrying, even before he injured himself.
Felix Auger-Aliassime might have eventually won, but not before dropping the first two sets against Alex Molcan after already struggling in the first round against Vasek Pospisil. After heartbreaking defeats to Medvedev in Australia and Nadal in Paris last year, one would expect Felix to be ready to take the next step this year but Slam winners tend to make easy work of these early rounds against lower ranked opponents.
Even John Isner‘s serve was far from its best, despite 23 aces, let alone the rest of his game in a first round defeat against Adrian Mannarino. It’s too early to write Isner off, as he tends to always have his best results on American soil, but it finally looks like the 37-year-old might be on his last legs.
Match of the day
In a day full of exciting action, Hubert Hurkacz’s win over Lorenzo Sonego was the highlight. It was an almost four-hour match between two players with different styles who matched each other blow for blow. In the end, the Pole was a bit more consistent and finally made it to the third round in Australia at the fifth time of asking.
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