Not a great evening for Australian slam champions so far. Sam Stosur just lost the first set 6-1 to American youngster Caty McNally who is eviscerating the 2011 Wimbledon champion’s serve and playing some vicious attacking tennis. Stosur has famously struggled on home soil and she hasn’t actually won a match in Melbourne since 2015. We’ll see what she can do in the second set.
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Here is Kevin Mitchell’s report from Melbourne after Dan Evans recovered from two sets down to defeat Mackenzie McDonald and seal his very first slam win as a seeded player. Evans will hope that there is more to come.
Preamble
Hello! Welcome to our coverage of the first night session of the 2020 Australian Open. It has already been a busy day with wins for Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Caroline Wozniacki and more, another victory for Coco Gauff over Venus Williams, one significant upset in 13th seed Denis Shapovalov’s four set loss to Marton Fucsovics and rain washing out most of the day session.
But now it is time for the main event as Australia’s Ashleigh Barty finally returns to her home slam as French Open champion and world number one. She will face a difficult first round against Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko, whose current ranking of 120, largely thanks to a long injury layoff, belies the fact that she was ranked in the top 25 this time last year. Novak Djokovic will follow her on Rod Laver Arena against Jan-Lennard Struff, another capable opponent. Elsewhere, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Sloane Stephens and Samantha Stosur are also in action. We are all very thankful for those three roofs.
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