Australian Open: Altmaier’s 25-Game Losing Streak

After the promising start, there was nothing but disappointment for the German tennis professionals at the Australian Open on the second day of the tournament. Tatjana Maria, Ella Seidel and Daniel Altmaier were all eliminated in the first round in Melbourne.

Altmaier in particular experienced a debacle against Croatian Marin Cilic at 0:6, 0:6, 6:7 (3:7). In the first two sets, the 27-year-old showed a desolate performance against the 2014 US Open champion. The Davis Cup professional was paraded by the 37-year-old Croatian and hardly showed any resistance. It was only after 69 minutes that Altmaier was able to win the first service game to make it 1-1 in the third set.

Since he had already lost 3:6, 0:6 at the tournament in Adelaide against the Spaniard Jaume Munar after a 3-0 lead before the Australian Open, Altmaier looked back on a horror series of a total of 25 individual lost games in a row in his last two matches. “When you lose 25 games in a row, you obviously worry about why it happened,” said Altmaier.

“I changed a few things in my game in preparation. That worked well in training, even against good players. It doesn’t work at all in competition, so I went back to my old approach in the third set. Then it became a close game,” said Altmaier. But he wasn’t embarrassed by the first two sentences. “That’s tennis. I made the decision, gave myself the time to try things out in the matches and I accept the outside opinion.”

Trio around Lys in action on Tuesday

Ella Seidel had the best chance of following Alexander Zverev and Yannick Hanfmann into the second round. In the end, the 20-year-old from Hamburg lost to the Russian Oxana Selechmeteva 3:6, 6:3, 0:6 and has to wait for her first win at a Grand Slam tournament. Tatjana Maria had previously been eliminated with a 3:6, 5:7 win against Croatian Petra Marcinko.

On Tuesday, Eva Lys, Laura Siegemund and Jan-Lennard Struff still have the chance to improve the German record in Melbourne. Lys plays against Romanian Sorana Cirstea, Siegemund faces Uzbek Lyudmila Samsonowa. Struff plays against the Czech Vit Kopriva.

Zverev only has his second appearance on the Yarra River on Wednesday against the Australian Alexei Popyrin or the French Alexandre Müller. Hanfmann will then meet world number one Carlos Alcaraz from Spain.

Seidel actually got off to a good start against Selechmetewa and was quickly one break ahead. After that, the North German made too many avoidable mistakes and gave up the first set. In the second round, Seidel improved, played more powerfully and managed to equalize the set. But then she lost her rhythm again and had to admit defeat after 1:47 hours.

Maria’s dream of a double with her daughter

Maria gave up a 5:3 lead against Marcinko in the second set. “I would have liked to get into the third set, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be,” said the 38-year-old after the defeat against the Croatian, who was 18 years her junior. “I would have liked it differently, but it wasn’t an easy match. She played very well,” said the mother of two, who generally has a hard time in Melbourne and has only been in the second round four times in her long career there.

Nevertheless, she still wants to come to Australia – at least for two more years. Because in 2028 her daughter Charlotte will be 14 years old and will then be allowed to play on the WTA tour. “Our goal is to play a doubles together once. And I hope that it will work in two years,” said Maria.

Anniversary victory for Gauff

Coco Gauff didn’t have much trouble with her first hurdle. The number three seeded American won against Uzbekistan’s Kamilla Rachimova 6:2, 6:3 and celebrated her 75th victory in one of the four Grand Slam tournaments at the age of 21.

The other favorites didn’t show any weakness either. Wimbledon and US Open finalist Amanda Anisimova from the USA had just as little trouble in beating Switzerland’s Simona Waltert 6:3, 6:2 as did Russian Daniil Medvedev. The three-time Melbourne finalist defeated Dutchman Jesper de Jong 7:5, 6:2, 7:6 (7:2).