Australian Open - Day 5

It's a bit strange to do a sport post every day. Rarely happens to me, only when there's a tennis tournament and the Australian Open is ongoing right now.

Today was another awesome day for me and for quite a few players and a bad one for those who lost. This is inevitable, only one can win out of two playing. So let's see what's happened today.

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Dominic Thiem vs Nick Kyrgios

There were two matches of utmost importance today and this was one of them. I'm going to be honest, I was nervous, even afraid of the outcome. I wanted Thiem to win so badly and knew what Kyrgios is capable of.

The match started in a strange way. Kyrgios got the advantage of playing in front of his compatriots being at home. This is always an advantage and the crowd is rooting for their players and the atmosphere was full of good vibes and encouragement towards Kyrgios. He made sure the crowd is rooting for him, started his own show pretty early, at the beginning of the first set and made unnecessary mistakes. It was clear from the beginning that pleasing the crowd was more important for him.

Maybe Thiem was affected by all this, maybe not, but the lost the first two sets. I wasn't worried as he's known for his disciplined behavior and self control, I know he's capable of turning the result to his advantage and it happened in the third set. He won the last three sets, giving us a heart attack in the last one, as the end of the match was very intense.

I was curious to see if Nick Kyrgios is capable of behaving during the match. He's known for his tantrums, for his angry breakouts and disrespectful behavior. He's also know for talking to himself during the matches, or speaking to the crowd.

This time he didn't speak to himself, but lost his temper at some point, argued with the chair umpire and got careless or lost concentration or both, I don't know, but it cost him the victory.

Overall it was a good match, I can say Nick behaved pretty well, compared to his usual behavior during matches. There were no broken tennis rackets, no balls thrown in anger. He lost and handled the situation quite well, congratulating Thiem at the end. He almost behaved like a professional this time.

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Novak Djokovic vs Taylor Fritz

This match was the other one I was looking forward to. Should have been a straight forward thing but got complicated in the process to a point where Djokovic's qualification was in danger.

For those of you who don't follow tennis, Novak Djokovic is No. 1 at the moment, Taylor Fritz is No. 124 and there's roughly 10 years age difference between the two players.

The first two sets were fine, it happened exactly what was expected, then Djokovic made a wrong move and got injured. It was visible right away, that it's not something to take it lightly, the expression on his face, the grimaces could tell you how much he's suffering but didn't give up. It took him two sets to find out what he's still capable of, how to hit the ball and how to move in order to be able to play and not lose.

So the next two sets were won by the young American Taylor Fritz, who got a present out of the blue but was still struggling. He's lacking experience at this level and need more practice.

It was painful to watch Djokovic suffer like a dog, the first instinct would be to help him, but you can't. He was given medical help, which may have had an effect as he was able to win the match after 5 sets, two more than planned probably.

Matches overlapped again today, so I had to prioritize and choose between two or three at some point, so I missed the first two sets of this game, during which something happened to Fritz's shoelace. He started to have problem with his shoe insole at some point, towards the end of the game and asked for help. That's when I saw his shoelace was previously damaged and knotted already.

When he took out one of his shoe insoles we could see it was full of holes and torn. A helper came and glued his shoe insole to his shoe so he can continue playing. This was a bit shocking.

I've seen Djokovic damaging his shoe lace during one game before, but the minute that happened, he took out a new pair of shoes and changed both shoes altogether, not just the laces.

Maybe Fritz didn't know accidents can happen or he didn't have spare shoes, I don't know. Now he knows he has to bring spare shoes and spare tennis rackets as sh*t can happen.

The public was quite disrespectful towards Djokovic and I don't know why. He must have done or said something in the past to upset the Aussie public, as they were noisy today.

Melbourne Lockdown

As of tonight, Melbourne is in a 5 day lockdown, and as the last match between Djokovic and Fritz lasted for more than 3 hours, 3:25 actually, at 11:30 the game was stopped and spectators were asked to leave.

From that point on, the game was more enjoyable. I know it's strange what I'm saying but for me the crowd was annoying today.

These were my predictions for today:

• Grigor Dimitrov vs Pablo Carreño Busta - Pablo Carreño Busta - missed (Busta got injured during the match and quit)
• Adrian Mannarino vs Alexander Zverev - Alexander Zverev - correct
• Aslan Karatsev vs Diego Schwartzman - Diego Schwartzman - missed
• Márton Fucsovics vs Milos Raonic - Milos Raonic - correct
• Dominic Thiem vs Nick Kyrgios - Dominic Thiem (I'm going to be very angry if he doesn't win) - correct
• Novak Djokovic - Taylor Fritz - Novak Djokovic - correct

4 out of 6. Not good but the match with Busta is an exception as it wasn't finished.

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My prediction for tomorrow:

• Filip Krajinović vs - Daniil Medvedev - Daniil Medvedev
• Andrey Rublev vs - Feliciano López - Andrey Rublev
• Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Mikael Ymer - Stefanos Tsitsipas
• Karen Khachanov vs Matteo Berrettini - Matteo Berrettini
• Fabio Fognini vs Alexde Minaur - Fabio Fognini
• Cameron Norrie vs Rafael Nadal - Rafael Nadal

The more the game advances, the harder to predict the winners as the players are almost at the same level or very close, but it's still fun and I have nothing to lose, right?