MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014\u00a0Aryna Sabalenka\u00a0and Carlos Alcaraz fulfilled expectations on opening night of the Australian Open, the No. 1 seeds advancing in straight sets in a Sunday session that started with tennis royalty Rod Laver and Roger Federer in the crowd.<\/p>\n
Rod Laver Arena was heaving for their first-round matches, capping a day when a record total of 100,763 fans packed into Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old\u00a0Venus Williams set a record, too, becoming the oldest player ever in the women’s singles draw at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
Out on John Cain Arena, the so-called People’s Court because it’s open to fans with ground passes, Williams was up two service breaks at 4-0 in the third set before Olga Danilovic rallied to win six straight games in a 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n
The seven-time major winner, playing on a wild-card entry in the singles in just her second major since returning to the tour last year, plans to continue in doubles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud of my effort today because I\u2019m playing better with each match, getting to the places that I want to get to,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now I\u2019m just going to have to keep going forward and working on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka fended off left-handed wild-card entry Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah, 6-4, 6-1 after dropping the opening service game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t start my best. She showed up. Fired on. She was playing great,\u201d said Sabalenka, who won the Australian title in 2023 and \u201924 and was runner-up last year. \u201cIt was a tricky start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka prepared for the first major of the season with a\u00a0title in Brisbane\u00a0but was a little more nervous than usual because Laver, the Australian great, and 20-time major winner Federer were watching.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a huge fan. I wanted to show great tennis so you guys enjoyed watching me play,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was definitely a lot of pressure. I was walking, thinking \u2018don\u2019t look there, don\u2019t look there!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her next round is against Chinese qualifier Bai Zhuoxuan, who outlasted 2021 French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (10) in a 2-hour, 43-minute match. No. 28 Emma Raducanu, who could potentially meet Sabalenka in the third round, beat Mananchaya Sawangkaew 6-4, 6-1.<\/p>\n
Day 1 of a scheduled 15 closed with\u00a0Alcaraz\u00a0winning 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-2 over Adam Walton, beginning his bid to set a record for being the youngest player to complete a career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Alexander Zverev, runner-up here last year to Jannik Sinner, shrugged off a sluggish start to beat Gabriel Diallo 6-7 (7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 to reach the second round at Melbourne Park for the 10th straight year.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely, when I saw the draw, wasn\u2019t too happy to be honest,\u201d Zverev said of the tricky challenge presented by No. 41-ranked Diallo. \u201cHe\u2019s very young, very talented. Unbelievably aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 10 Alexander Bublik advanced over Jenson Brooksby 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, No. 29 Frances Tiafoe overpowered Jason Kubler 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2 and Michael Zheng fended off Sebastian Korda 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (0), 6-3 in an all-American first-rounder.<\/p>\n
Zheng, a college star at Columbia who advanced through qualifying to make his tour-level debut, will next face No. 32 Corentin Moutet, who was booed after his\u00a0underarm serve\u00a0on match point in a 6-4, 7-6 (1), 6-3 win over Tristan Schoolkate.<\/p>\n
Two of the women\u2019s seeds went out in the opening afternoon, with Elsa Jacquemot ousting No. 20\u00a0Marta Kostyuk\u00a06-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7) and Turkish qualifier Zeynep S\u00f6nmez upsetting No. 11 Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.<\/p>\n
S\u00f6nmez halted her match briefly in the second set to\u00a0help a ballkid\u00a0who appeared to be struggling in the heat before the tournament medical team took over.<\/p>\n
Seventh-seeded Jasmine Paolini, No. 12 Elina Svitolina and Maria Sakkari all advanced in straight sets.<\/p>\n
Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova withdrew because of a shoulder injury before her scheduled first-round match, giving a place in the main draw to Taylor Townsend, the lucky loser from qualifying, to take on Hailey Baptiste.<\/p>\n
In a 2 1\/2-hour all-American contest on Court 13, Baptiste prevailed 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-3.<\/p>\n
Coco Gauff will open play Monday on Rod Laver Arena against Kamilla Rakhimova. Iga Swiatek and Novak Djokovic have night matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014\u00a0Aryna Sabalenka\u00a0and Carlos Alcaraz fulfilled expectations on opening night of the Australian Open, the No. 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-417689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}