In the 2000s, the most notable Australian Open men’s singles trend was unexpected players making it all the way to the final. In more recent years it has been surprising semifinalists–Hyeon Chung, Kyle Edmund, Lucas Pouille, and Aslan Karatsev.
Tommy Paul has kept the story going; now he hopes to invoke memories of Arnaud Clement, Rainer Schuettler, Marcos Baghdatis, Fernando Gonzalez, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
In order to do it, Paul will have to take down the man who is the all-time leader in Australian Open titles and who is two wins away from tying the overall record for Grand Slam titles. The bad news for Paul is that Novak Djokovic has looked as dominant in his last two matches as he did en route to his previous nine trophies at Melbourne Park. The 35-year-old destroyed Alex de Minaur 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 in round four before beating Andrey Rublev 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinals.
While capitalizing on a favorable draw, Paul picked up only two wins in straight sets on his way to a first-ever major semifinal appearance (over Jan-Lennard Struff and Jenson Brooksby). The 25-year-old American also defeated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in five, Roberto Bautista Agut in four, and Ben Shelton in four.
“I’m really excited; it’s really cool,” Paul said following his victory over Shelton, prior to the Djokovic-Rublev match. “I think it’s even cooler if I do play Novak; that’s probably who I want to play. I mean, I probably have a better chance of winning if it’s Rublev, but to play Novak here in Australia would be awesome.”
Paul is absolutely right; it will be an awesome experience, but he does have a much–much!–worse chance of beat Djokovic. Just as it for pretty much everyone on tour, this is a terrible matchup for Paul. The world No. 35 wins with his consistency, defense, and athleticism, which is not the recipe for success against Djokovic. Shelton, whom Paul knocked off in the quarters, would probably have had a better (but still slim) shot at being competitive because he can take the racket out of an opponent’s hand with huge serves and forehands.
Paul has been playing great dating all the way back to last spring and is fully deserving of being on this stage, but it’s an experience that probably won’t last long on Friday night.
Pick: Djokovic in 3
WWW?
I wish the facts were otherwise….but they’re not…Joker in 3.
I think this will be a very easy match for Novak. Just a question of how many games he loses. Won’t be many imo.
Tommy Paul will win this match in 4 sets. Novak is gonna have a serious flare of his injury and it’s gonna impede him significantly.
🤣🤣🤣
12 winners to 24 UE’s* in set 1 from Novak and Tommy Paul couldn’t take adv.
Novak’s been patchy in his matches. His best level has been incredible but he’s been inconsistent and it’s a shame his draw has been a joke. I still think if he’d been pushed physically in back to back matches, he might be looking at a different proposition.
There’s no Medvedev to make that happen and we have Tsitsipas. The Greek is in great form, posting great stats behind his serve and has the best forehand in the game currently after Rafa’s I think. We know Novak’s going to exploit those systematic weaknesses in his game and given the mental adv Novak has, it will be too much for Tsitsipas.
I don’t think it will be an easy match at all given how well Stef is serving and playing overall but his chances are very slim.
*Note that UE’s are a subjective statistic.
Tsitsi is #44 on the ATP leaderboard on return. So that shows that that shot simply isn’t good enough at elite level. He is always very low on the ATP leaderboard on return!
And his backhand isn’t reliable and breaks down under pressure.
Against the guy with the goat bh and the goat return that’s a total mismatch.
It’s true that Novaks draw has been very easy: De minaur; Rublev; Paul; Tsitsi. No one who can hurt him unless he has a total on court nervous breakdown.
Tsitsi is very reliant on his serve. That had better not go missing but I don’t think he has the game to beat Novak.
He is gradually making much needed adjustments to his return, esp. on the backhand side. The guy used to try and drive every single return and create some amusing shanked return slow mo reels. He really needs to learn the block return which people like Federer and Wawrinka used against Djoko. I think Tsitsi is making progress in the right direction but game wise, is he there to beat ND at the AO? The answer is no I think. He needs some bad patches and that’s like asking for a miracle in an AO final.
Could be interesting if Novak does have some bad patches and the match goes long. How fit is he now?
Would be very uncharacteristic in a slam final against a player he owns.
I just don’t see Tsitsipas beating Novak in the final. He needs to have mental toughness to gut it out in a best of five set match. I just don’t see him being able to hang with Novak. Even Novak not at his best is able to beat the young guys. Novak knows what the weaknesses are with Tsitsipas. He is experienced enough to take advantage of his backhand and weak return.
I honestly cannot be mad that Novak”s level at this stage in his career is bar none!! We all know y that is given the era of tennis he is blessed to have been part of. My issue really is the inability of those youngsters who have had enough batting practice against the top 3 to STILL at this point unable to compete with the top 3 at a grand slam!!! I mean the only player who showed up last year was Alcaraz……a few of the others have come close as in being two sets up but when it comes to closing just literally collapsed!!!!!! I honestly am at a lost for words!!
Anyway, congratulations Novak fans for ure man making history one more time at achieving his la decima at AO on Sunday!! He deserves it!!!
As for Rafa, get well soon……..we Rafans miss you, and in retrospect I appreciate even more l, despite ure history with injuries, how over all those years ure ability to put out great results at slams no matter ure level of fitness. This is something I believe that makes you so unique and so special………truly remarkable!!!! Vamos Rafa!!!!
Well said Mona. Hard to describe the incomparable greatness of the big 3!
And then one looks at the players who year after year have the same issues: Med has very little transition game; Rublev has practically no transition game and a weak second serve; Berretini has a weak backhand and dodgy return. Why can’t they fix these glaring issues? Or rather seek to mitigate them?
As for other players having leads and then collapsing that is because the big 3 raise their level and they can’t match it. That’s the big difference between them and the others. They have another level to go to and the others don’t.
Not sure I would say that Rafa last year against Meddy and Novak at the French against Tsitsi won because they raised their level. I think both of those younger guys choked in a big way. But the mental strength that Rafa and Novak have comes in large part because of their vast experience in those settings. They walk on the court in a slam final against one of the younger guys, and they just have the confidence that they will win. Novak will certainly have that behind him today.