Serena, Osaka drawn in same half at Aus Open
MELBOURNE: Serena Williams has been drawn into the same quarter at the Australian Open as No. 2-ranked Simona Halep and the same half as Naomi Osaka in her latest bid for a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam singles title. First up for the seven-time Australian Open champion will be Laura Siegemund of Germany. And that’s her immediate focus. US Open champion Osaka will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the first round and has major winners Angelique Kerber, Garbine Muguruza, last year’s runner-up in Australia, Venus Williams and Bianca Andreescu in her quarter.
Defending champion Sofia Kenin is on the top half of the women’s draw along with No. 1-ranked Ash Barty and they could potentially meet in the semi-finals again. Kenin won that encounter last year on her way to a breakthrough major title. Novak Djokovic’s bid for a third consecutive Australian title, and ninth overall, could get tricky. He has an opener against Jerome Chardy and three-time major winner Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic and Alexander Zverev are in his quarter.
Top-ranked Djokovic and Zverev were playing against each other in an ATP Cup doubles match when the draw was made Friday for the seasonopening major. Djokovic edged Zverev in the second singles match to pull defending champion Serbia level at 1-1 with Germany, with the winner advancing to the final.
Rafael Nadal, aiming to win a record 21st major singles title -he moved equal with Roger Federer by winning the French Open last year - -will open against Laslo Djere and could face fifthseeded Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarter-finals.
Nagal draws Berankis
India’s Sumit Nagal drew Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis as his first-round opponent at the Australian Open. It will be Nagal’s second clash against the world No 72 in as many weeks after losing to the Lithuanian early this week in the build up event.
If Nagal, a wild card entrant and world number 139, can cross the first hurdle, he will run into either 19th seed Russian Karen Khachanov or local wild card Aleksandar Vukic. However, Ankita Raina, who was waiting to know if she gets ‘lucky loser’ spot in the women’s singles, could not make the cut. In the men’s doubles, Rohan Bopanna and Divih Sharan will compete with their respective partners.
No new Covid cases
An Australian Open testing blitz has revealed no new coronavirus cases, organisers said Friday, putting preparations for the Grand Slam tournament back on track after a Covid scare. Planning for the year’s opening tennis major was thrown into disarray when a worker at one of the designated tournament hotels became infected with the virus.
Some 507 players and officials were ordered to take tests and isolate until they received their result, with six warm-up tournaments suspended on Thursday.
But they were all cleared on Friday as the action resumed at Melbourne Park. “All tests conducted on AO (Australian Open) quarantine participants yesterday have returned negative results,” said a tweet on the tournament’s official Twitter account.