It was very much business as usual for Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams at the Australian Open yesterday, even if allegations of widespread match-fixing cast a shadow over the opening day of the year’s first Grand Slam.
As the sun shone and more than 70,000 fans streamed through the gates at Melbourne Park, the great and the good of tennis officialdom filed into a room in the bowels of Rod Laver Arena to defend their record on battling corruption.
On the pristine blue show court only a few meters away, first Williams, then Djokovic gave notice that they had no intention of relinquishing lightly the dominance they exerted over tennis last year.
Photo: Reuters
Williams had not completed a set since her dream of winning all four Grand Slams in one year was dashed in the US Open semi-finals in September last year, yet she proved far too strong for Italian Camila Giorgi in their first-round match.
Dispelling any doubts about her fitness and form, the 34-year-old American moved freely on the troublesome knee that forced her to quit the Hopman Cup mid-match two weeks ago.
“It’s great. It was an hour and 43 minutes and I didn’t feel it at all,” the six-time Australian Open champion said after her 6-4, 7-5 victory.
Photo: EPA
“OK, I haven’t played in a long time, but I have been playing for 30 years,” she said.
Djokovic, who also won three Grand Slams last year, has been far more active than Williams in recent months, but has not been beaten since August last year, a run that never looked like ending in his 115-minute clash with South Korean teenager Chung Hyeon.
The 28-year-old played very much the elder statesman after the 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory, complimenting his 19-year-old opponent on his game, but advising him to come back and try again when he had more experience.
“A nice opening match with real Australian summer conditions,” Djokovic said after embarking on his quest to match Roy Emerson’s record of six Australian Open crowns.
“You try to stay composed, not get carried away by heat. Of course, there were some long exchanges that got both of us a little bit short on air, but I think physically I was really good on the court. I managed to play the best tennis when I needed to,” he said.
Finding that extra gear when required is one of the factors that have helped Roger Federer to 17 Grand Slam singles titles, but the Swiss barely needed to move out of first in his opening match against Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili.
The 34-year-old’s 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 victory set him on a path he hopes will end with a first title in one of the majors since he triumphed at Wimbledon in 2012.
His next hurdle is Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov, who might as well have “tricky” appended to his name.
“Dolgopolov is a different player, a different level,” Federer said. “He’s got the fitness, the power, the speed, tennis IQ, all that. It’s going to be a big challenge.”
Maria Sharapova was the other former champion in first-round action yesterday and she too eased past a younger challenger, beating Japanese 21-year-old Nao Hibino 6-1, 6-3.
With 128 players playing on the courts around Melbourne Park, there were bound to be upsets, on grounds of reputation if not current standing.
Sloane Stephens of the US, a semi-finalist at Melbourne Park three years ago, had a very bad day at the office.
She was sent packing by Chinese qualifier Wang Qiang.
Former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki suffered a similar fate at the hands of Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, while Sam Stosur, the former US Open champion, made her now traditional early exit from her home Grand Slam.
Nearly all the big names were grilled about their reaction to the match-fixing report, which broke a couple of hours before play started and had echoes of the stories which created turmoil last year at the governing bodies of world soccer and athletics.
The report by the BBC and BuzzFeed News said 16 players who have been ranked in the top 50 had been repeatedly flagged to the Tennis Integrity Unit over suspicions they had thrown matches in the past decade.
The report said the unit, set up to police illegal activities in tennis, either failed to act upon information that identified suspicious behavior among players, or impose any sanctions.
All of the players, including winners of Grand Slam titles, were allowed to continue competing, while eight are playing in the Australian Open, the report added.
The BBC and BuzzFeed News said they had not named any players because without access to their telephone, bank and computer records it was not possible to determine whether they took part in match-fixing.
They said a 2007 ATP Tour inquiry found betting syndicates in Russia, northern Italy and Sicily making hundreds of thousands of pounds betting on games which investigators thought to be fixed.
Three of those games were at Wimbledon.
“I think it’s always a disappointment when stories come out like this just before the big event, because it does detract, but I think it will be seen that tennis is in a very, very good place,” ATP Tour chairman Chris Kermode said.
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