The Open the Australia 2023 It has already come to an end, but it continues to leave many things to analyze and big names to talk about. In this case, we are going to focus on several players who were no longer expected to have the level they have offered in Melbourne but who have shown that with good preparation they are more than capable of continuing to compete against anyone and also those players who have always They are in a second step, but they have the weapons to go far in all tournaments and they just lack some consistency. These circumstances have occurred in both the men’s and women’s circuits.
As far as men’s tennis is concerned, the big names in the tournament in this section are on the side of veterans Andy Murray. In a circuit where it is increasingly common for the final rounds to be all young talents more Rafael Nadal y Novak Djokovic, the Scotsman has returned to compete as he did in his best years and despite having a metal hip and no longer having the physique of yesteryear, Murray has left several lessons in grit and pride by winning in five sets against Matteo Berrettini and Thanasi Kokkinakis in two clashes that could well enter the top 10 best games of the year. He also competed against Roberto Bautista in the third round, but it is evident that the fact of finishing at 4 in the morning against the Australian weighed him down a lot in his preparation for that match, so nobody knows how far he could have gone if his rest to face that clash becomes the usual one.
The other player from whom no one expected a great participation to come together again is clearly Karen Khachanov. The Russian tennis player has once again signed a magnificent Grand Slam and already knows what it is like to reach the quarterfinals of the four ‘majors’, a fact that not many players can say at the end of his career. Khachanov, who attracts less attention than his compatriots Medvedev and Rublev, has emerged as a tennis player made for big events, since to these results is added the silver won at the Tokyo Olympics and the Masters 1000 in Paris-Bercy in the year 2018. The Muscovite now needs to achieve that necessary consistency to be able to achieve these results more frequently, but what is evident is that with his game he can be trained for it as long as he achieves greater solidity at key moments.
WTA CIRCUIT
In the women’s box there have also been several cases like those already mentioned. On the one hand, Victoria Azarenka y Karolina Pliskova They have shone in Melbourne at a time when virtually no one considered them. The Belarusian was just one step away from the final and during various phases of the tournament she remembered that player who became number 1 in 2012 and who was proclaimed champion of the Australian Open. At 33 years old, she is still hungry for titles and a lot is expected of her in this new season.
The Czech, who was number one in 2017, has also started the year at a high level and only had a bad day against Magda Linette, the great surprise of the tournament, kept her from being able to return to a Grand Slam semifinal. Pliskova, 30, is still in time to win a Grand Slam, a goal that she has always resisted, but perhaps now, with less pressure and more experience, she can achieve. By now, she has already made it clear that she is still a top-tier player and that she is not going to stop trying.
Finally, and in a situation similar to that of Khachanov, but with better results, is Elena Rybakina. The Kazakh has once again played her best tennis in a Grand Slam and was very close to winning the final. With his service and his mentality, he is capable of getting anywhere, and like the Russian, he needs to maintain that regularity that he is not able to achieve, since during most of last season he obtained very discreet results, so It will be interesting to see if this improves this year, since if it does, it could be a serious candidate to fight for number 1.
