Four Austrians are in the Australian Open’s main draw: Dominic Thiem and Gerald Melzer in particular are likely to make progress. Dennis Novak will make his debut at the Rod Laver Arena.
Dennis Novak has one thing in common with 124 other players in the tableau of the Australian Open 2018: The Lower Austrian is going into his first Grand Slam match as an outsider. The particular difficulty lies in the fact that the opponent’s name is Grigor Dimitrov – current champion of the ATP finals, last year in Melbourne in the semi-finals, winner of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Cincinnati. Only Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and probably Novak Djokovic, who has been re-read again, are currently leading the betting offices in the match-up with the Bulgarian team.
From this point of view, Novak has nothing to lose after three successful qualifying matches, at most one tennis match (and that in the Rod Laver Arena, the third match after 11 o’ clock local time). World-class players are not unfamiliar to the 24-year-old: Dominic Thiem is not only a good friend, with the Austrian number one Novak has also prepared himself for the 2018 season in Tenerife. Thiem and Novak, that’s already been the case in the doubles, in Kitzbühel, for example, where there was only one point missing to win the tournament in front of an almost full house.
Dennis Novak is currently ranked 224th in the world ranking and Dimitrov is 221 places higher. Guest appearances on the highest ATP level are still exceptions for the native Viennese Neustadt player, Novak started in 2018 at the Challenger in Noumea, where he lost to Taylor Fritz in round one. Last year Novak reached the main field in Vienna’s Stadthalle, where he defeated Thomas Fabbiano (as in the last round of qualifying) and lost to Kyle Edmund in round two.
Gerald Melzer is already on Monday, Austria’s number two has finished the year 2017 excellently, namely on ashes and in South America. Melbourne is not ashes and it’s a long way from Lima and Guayaquil, where Melzer won both challenges. The match against Nikoloz Basilashvili (third match on Court 5) still holds more chances than risks, for the current number 102 in the world.
In principle, Georgians only offer top speed tennis, which is risky in itself. The Georgian is ranked 61st, and Basilashvili has never played Melzer before. The 27-year-old Austrian has 68th place in his CV as a career high, and Melzer has not yet interfered with the action on the tour in the current season. Basilashvili won a match in Doha, against Fabbiano and then lost to Borna Coric.
Andreas Haider-Maurer will open Court 19 at 11 Ur local time against Alexandr Dolgopolov.”AHM” has prepared itself in the tennis base in Oberhaching near Munich, not a bad choice, there are regularly players of the extended world class like Florian Mayer, Yannick Hanfmann or Maximilian Marterer available, with Philipp Kohlschreiber also a man with top 20 past and again – potential.
Haider-Maurer has used its Protected Ranking to secure a place in the main field. Against Dolgopolov, the native of Innsbruck is undoubtedly an outsider, even if the Ukrainian occasionally tends to miss out on the seriousness he deserves. However, rarely at the Grand Slam level, Jan-Lennard Struff had to make this experience at the last US Open: Dolgopolov won a close to five-set match with a highly fluctuating course of play. However, the question of physical superiority is not easy to answer: Andreas Haider-Maurer has to find the right competition hardness after his long injury break, Alexandr Dolgopolov is plagued again and again by small bruises, which prevent a more constant appearance.
Austria’s number one, like the entire lower half of the men’s tableau, will not start competing until Tuesday, the first task for Thiem is known as Guido Pella. There have been two comparisons with the Argentinean so far, both lost Thiem. In Rio de Janeiro, however, after a strenuous and successful tournament week in Buenos Aires, where he had defeated Rafael Nadal among others, Dominic Thiem was no longer at the height of his creativity. Pella, on the other hand, had caught a day in the Brazilian Olympic city on which he knew exactly where the goal was.
Last year in Chengdu, Thiem had passed the triumvirate US Open (with a demoralizing defeat against Juan Martin del Potro), a Davis Cup week in Wels on sand and a career highlight with participation in the Laver Cup. This time the conditions are different: Thiem has started the year in Doha solidly up to the semi-final, the illness suffered in the desert state is likely to have overcome the Lichtenwörther. The appearance against Novak Djokovic in the Kooyong Classics against Novak Djokovic was a better training session, Thiem will rate this similarly to Richard Gasquet, who is not one of the favourites for the Australian Open title after his first victory against Rafael Nadal.
Here is the schedule for the first day of the Australian Open 2018