{"id":379874,"date":"2026-01-20T07:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/379874\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T07:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:47:15","slug":"australian-open-novak-djokovic-vs-francesco-maestrelli-prediction-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/379874\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open: Novak Djokovic vs. Francesco Maestrelli – prediction, form"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making his 19th appearance in the second round of the Australian Open Novak Djokovic<\/a> faces Italian Francesco Maestrelli in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

The 10-time winner of this event disposed of Pedro Martinez in his opener 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, while Maestrelli won a five-set contest with Terence Atmane 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-1, and 6-1.<\/p>\n

Match preview<\/p>\n

Djokovic kept it 100 on Monday, reaching the century mark for wins at this tournament with a comfortable victory over Martinez.<\/p>\n

Along with that milestone, Djokovic also drew even with Roger Federer<\/a> and Feliciano Lopez<\/a> for the most Grand Slam singles appearances (81).<\/p>\n

There were no signs of fatigue or rust from him in his opener as he hit 14 aces while giving up only two in a straightforward triumph.<\/p>\n

On the day he won 93% of his first serves, with his fastest clocked at 199 km per hour, while he also had 49 winners throughout the match.<\/p>\n

Only once since 2007 have we seen him exit this event in the second round, when Denis Istomin<\/a> upset him in five sets, two of which went to tiebreakers.<\/p>\n

While he did not give up a single return winner, Djokovic only hit two himself in his opener and won five of his 12 break-point opportunities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Imago \/ NurPhoto<\/p>\n

It has been a long road for Francesco Maestrelli to get to this stage of the singles draw, winning three qualifiers just to make it into the opening round.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old has made the most of his opportunities, hitting 28 aces against his French counterpart to keep his magical run going.<\/p>\n

This upcoming match will be the biggest of his career as he seeks his first singles triumph versus a top-10 player on tour.<\/p>\n

Maestrelli has won the opening set in three of his four singles matches at this tournament, while coming from a set down to beat another Serbian, Dusan Lajovic in his third qualifying match.<\/p>\n

To pull off such a massive upset this week, Maestrelli will have to be just as strong on serve against his 38-year-old counterpart, with the Italian\u2019s serve reaching speeds of 220 km per hour in his first round outing.<\/p>\n

He won 81% of his first serves against Atmane with 60 winners, but also made 45 unforced errors, an area that he will need to clean up if he is to defeat Djokovic.<\/p>\n

Tournament so far<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic:<\/p>\n

First Round: vs. Pedro Martinez\u00a06-3 6-2 6-2<\/p>\n

Francesco Maestrelli:<\/p>\n

First Qualifier: vs.\u00a0Lorenzo Giustino 7-6 (7-4) 6-1<\/p>\n

Second Qualifier:\u00a0vs. Thiago Seyboth Wild 7-6 (7-2) 6-4<\/p>\n

Third Qualifier:\u00a0vs. Dusan Lajovic 4-6 6-4 6-3<\/p>\n

First Round:\u00a0vs. Terence Atmane 6-4 3-6 6-7 (4-7) 6-1 6-1<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We say: Djokovic to win in three sets<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine Maestrelli playing a mistake-free match, and that is likely what it will take for Djokovic to fall this early.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Making his 19th appearance in the second round of the Australian Open Novak Djokovic faces Italian Francesco Maestrelli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[4985,5906,218,372,5904,3553,5905,221,5903,217,101,3022,5907,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-379874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-cycling","tag-epl","tag-football","tag-formula-1","tag-golf","tag-nfl","tag-olympics","tag-premier-league","tag-rugby","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-sports-mole","tag-teams","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}