The first tennis major of the year, the 2025 Australian Open, kicked off Monday in Melbourne, Australia.
Several top-ranked players dealt with early-season jitters. World No. 7 Novak Djokovic and World No. 11 Tommy Paul dropped their first sets but managed to regain form to advance. However, at least three notable players were ousted in the first round.
11th-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas
The Greek suffered a shocking upset at the hands of 20-year-old American Alex Michelsen, who prevailed with a 7-5, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win. Michelsen showed inexperience by committing eight double faults, allowing Tsitsipas back into the contest in the third set.
However, he produced timely winners to put away Tsitsipas — a former two-time major finalist — to register the biggest win of his career. After the loss, Tsitsipas said his move to skip the doubles quotient of the event backfired on him.
“I guess karma hit me,” Tsitsipas said, via ATP Tour. “I was not able to deliver or play the way I was hoping to at this year’s event.”
16th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko
The former French Open champion was rusty in her first grand slam match since giving birth last April. She dropped two early break points in the first set but roared back in the second by saving five match points when her opponent, Belinda Bencic, served at 5-4.
Ultimately, Ostapenko failed to convert on two set points to lose 6-3, 6-7 to the unseeded Swede. After the match, Bencic noted that she and Ostapenko first played each other at a U-12 tournament in 2007 when they were both 10. That familiarity helped her.
“We know each other very well from the juniors,” Bencic said, via WTA Tour. “We’re both ’97 [born]. Maybe it’s like this extra motivation of just someone being your age.”
10th-seeded Grigor Dimitrov
The veteran Bulgarian ended 2024 with a bang with impressive performances at the U.S. Open, Stockholm Open and Paris Masters. He carried the form into the 2025 Brisbane Open where he reached the semifinal before retiring with a groin injury.
Sadly for Dimitrov, those soft tissue injuries are starting to flare up more frequently in his age-33 season. On Monday, he was forced to retire against unseeded Italian Francesco Passaro with the same groin/hip injury. Dimitrov was also forced to retire at last year’s Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. One wonders if he might be on the verge of calling it a day.
As is the nature of grand slam tennis, one shouldn’t be shocked if we see more upsets on Day 2. An upset alert to keep tabs on is Brazilian prodigy Joao Fonseca’s major debut against World No. 9 Andrey Rublev. If Fonseca pulls this off, it’ll mark quite the major debut.
