Breaking the Grand Slam duck after years of relentless expectations allows Scot Andy Murray a renewed approach to his latest Australian Open campaign. The 2012 US Open champion returns to defend his Brisbane title tonight with the hoodoo broken and already there is a heavy focus on how he will handle his newfound success.
World No.3 Murray begins his Australian summer assault tonight against home-town hero John Millman, the 199th-ranked qualifier who has already notched four wins at this year’s event, just to reach the second round. The step up in class, though, will be profound and Millman will be hoping some of the cobwebs, which plagued Murray at his exhibition appearance in Abu Dhabi only days ago, will linger tonight.
Serena Williams is first cab off the rank in the night session and will relish taking on fellow American Sloane Stephens, the bubbly 19-year-old who says she would have become an embalmer at her family’s funeral home business if she wasn’t a tennis player. Touted as the next big thing in US tennis circles, Stephens will have nothing to lose against her Fed Cup teammate.
After her close-shave yesterday, German fourth seed Angelique Kerber opens the day’s play on Pat Rafter Arena, this time against a Russian whose name sometimes fails to fit on the scoreboard – Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Kerber only just scraped past teenage Puerto Rican qualifier Monica Puig yesterday so expect Pav’ to do her utmost to ensure the last seed in the bottom half of the draw tumbles.
World No.1 Victoria Azarenka wasted little time dismissing the big-hitting threat German Sabine Lisicki posed last night. Little wonder. She will have to back up for her quarterfinal showdown with Kazakh qualifier Ksenia Pervak in the second match on Pat Rafter Arena today. Pervak will have a tough time continuing her dream run, which included winning five straight matches, one over former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki.
Lleyton Hewitt will be bidding to reach his first quarterfinal on home soil in nearly three years when he takes on big-serving Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the last match of the day session. Hewitt, 31, has won both previous encounters against his 26-year-old opponent, who reached the quarterfinals here last year. Istomin though, has fallen to Australian players in both previous Brisbane campaigns, Bernard Tomic last year and Matt Ebden in 2011 and with the crowd on his side, Hewitt will expect to follow suit.