Australian Open Week One diary: Highs and lows from Melbourne Park

The 2021 Australian Open has hit its halfway mark and has so far provided some incredible tennis, lots of drama, and a nonstop stream of news. Week One in Melbourne started with fans in the stands (30,000 per day) but ended behind closed doors as the city entered a five-day lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Here is a look at some of the highs (and lows) from the first three rounds of singles action at Melbourne Park. An opening round that received the most hype when the draw first came out, Shapovalov’s five-set victory that halted Sinner’s 10-match winning streak certainly did not disappoint. The 21-year-old Canadian fired 62 winners and saved a whopping 17/20 break points en route to a memorable triumph over one of the hottest young prospects on tour in Sinner. The match had everything – momentum swings, flashy shot-making and even a fiery argument between Shapovalov and the umpire over a toilet break request. A seething Simona is always a dangerous prospect, which is why Tomljanovic wasn’t celebrating when she led the second-seeded Romanian 5-2 in the final set. “Subconsciously I did feel like I was incredibly close. But at the same time I knew she would never give it to me easy. She did exactly what I expected. She raised her level. Didn't give me much till the end,” Tomljanovic later explained. Halep ranted and raged throughout her tight victory over the Aussie last week, but dug deep when she needed to and fought back from the brink to advance. Two days earlier, Kyrgios would have deserved this honour himself after he saved two match points on his way to an impressive win over French No.29 seed Ugo Humbert in the second round. But Thiem's heroic effort from two-sets down against Kyrgios in the next round stole the show and it gave us one of the most entertaining matches of the week. The third-seeded Thiem lost the first two sets against the uber-talented Kyrgios, and fell behind 15-40 at the start of the third. But the Austrian – who has now come back from two sets down four times in his career, including at the 2020 US Open final – had other ideas as he clawed his way back into the contest to overcome his Australian opponent on Kyrgios’ favourite court. “Since US Open I know that impossible is nothing,” Thiem told Jim Courier after his win on John Cain Arena. Leave it to the 40-year-old American to provide the most inspiring moment of the tournament so far during her 6-1, 6-0 defeat in the second round. Williams rolled her ankle late in the first set against Sara Errani, and gave out harrowing screams of pain and heartbreak. The seven-time major champion received medical attention to her ankle and her knee and refused to retire from the match despite being visibly hampered by the injury. Barely able to move, she still managed to win 17 points in the second set, before bowing out. “You can’t always prepare for the triumph or the disaster in sports or in life. You can’t control it all. What you can control is how you handle the ups and the downs. No matter the outcome I always hold my head high and I leave everything I have on the court,” Williams later wrote on her Instagram. The 24-year-old became the first Egyptian woman in history to win a grand slam main draw match when she took out Chloe Paquet in the first round . Sherif had opportunities to make it further but ultimately lost in three close sets to Slovenian qualifier Kaja Juvan in the second round. Technically this happened at the start of week two but it is too good to ignore. After wrapping up a straight-sets win over Donna Vekic in the fourth round on Monday, the American 22nd seed scribbled the following message on the camera lens: “Bring it Jess”, along with a smiley face. The Jess she is referring to is Brady’s good friend Jessica Pegula, who happens to be her next opponent in what will be a must-see all-American quarter-final at Melbourne Park. During his night-session win over Michael Mmoh in the second round, Nadal burst into laughter when a woman in the stands yelled at him for taking too long between points and gave him an inappropriate gesture. The Spaniard took in all in jest and looked at her asking if he was indeed the subject of her rant. Nadal later expressed his surprise at the whole situation, telling reporters the woman probably had too much to drink. “Honestly was strange situation, but, yeah, funny at the same time,” he said. Making his Grand Slam main draw debut at the age of 27, the Russian world No 114 has stormed into the quarter-finals , as a qualifier, by upsetting the likes of eighth seed Diego Schwartzman and 20th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime along the way. Karatsev, whose first name literally means ‘lion’, is the first Grand Slam debutant to reach the men’s quarter-finals since Alex Radulescu at Wimbledon in 1996 and the first qualifier to reach the quarter-finals at a major since Bernard Tomic at Wimbledon 2011. He’ll jump to at least No 63 in the world when the next rankings are released next week. Contesting the 38th Grand Slam main draw of her career, the 35-year-old Hsieh advanced to the quarter-finals of a major for the first time on Sunday. A fan favourite and a true magician on the court, Hsieh is the oldest player to make her major quarter-finals debut in the Open Era. Two of the 72 players that had to go through the 14-day hard quarantine due to positive cases on their flights coming into Melbourne have advanced to the singles quarter-finals: Brady and Karatsev. The players who were in hard quarantine were unable to get the five hours of practice per day that everyone else got for the first two weeks in Melbourne and had just over a week to get back in shape for the opening grand slam of the season. “Ironically I actually interact with Venus more. For me, I feel like I do talk about Serena a lot, but Venus is sort of the reason why Serena is where she is. Of course, I always love to pay homage to her. But I'm being the little sister, so I kind of talk about Serena all the time because she's also the little sister.” – Naomi Osaka explains why she related more to Serena than Venus Williams. “I asked her to recruit me in her soccer team, I'm still waiting for the contract.” – Tunisian Ons Jabeur makes an interesting request from her third-round opponent Osaka, who recently became a new owner of NWSL side the North Carolina Courage. Reporter to Thanasi Kokkinakis: “Has anything changed since the Tsitsipas match until now? Any development for you?” Nick Kyrgios: “His direct messages.” – Kyrgios jokes that Kokkinakis has been getting more attention from women on his Instagram after showing great form at the Australian Open. “I would not be able to go function without my three-year-old around. I think I would be in a depression. We've been together every day of her life, so... Is that healthy? Not at all (laughter). Not even close. But every single day I just want to be around her. It's great. Everyone's different. I can totally understand why he would banish because if I had the strength to do it, I would too.” – Serena Williams was asked if she follows Tom Brady’s process in isolating completely from his family ahead of a big event. Short answer: No way! “I know that I have lost a lot and it hurts me. I would like to wake up and tell myself that this nightmare is over, but I don’t know when it will stop. I have no confidence, I have no confidence.” – A tearful Gael Monfils bared his soul in an emotional press conference following his opening round defeat to his practice partner Emil Ruusuvuori. “It was definitely a lot of power. But I'm used to it in practice. I know how to get them. I was okay with it really. If she wants to play power, let's go.” – Fighting talk from Serena Williams after her duel with Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round. “She's one of those players that, for me, if it was a video game, I would want to select her character just to play as her. Because my mind can't fathom the choices she makes when she's on the court. It's so fun to watch. It's not fun to play, but it's really fun to watch.” – Osaka knows she’s in for quite the ride against the creative Hsieh in the quarter-finals. “I think we’re a generation of great players, there is so much variety, there’s so much diversity among us. I think we’re expected to see really good tennis in the next couple of years and I think that’s going to make it really interesting, all of us fighting for the No.1 spot, fighting to be at the top. I think that’s much more interesting than the top three right now.” – Stefanos Tsitsipas turned some heads with this comment last week.

Australian Open Week One diary: Highs and lows from Melbourne Park

Reem Abulleil picks out the best matches, dramatic comebacks, and memorable quotes from the first three rounds