The porteño reached the quarterfinals in five Grand Slam tournaments, although the furthest he has gone in Melbourne is the fourth round in 2018 and 2020.
For his part, the Serbian Novak Djokovic (5th) will face the Spanish Roberto Carballés Baena (75) in the first round on his return to the tournament after being left out last year after being deported for refusing to be vaccinated against covid-19.
The Serbian star will thus begin his attempt to reach his tenth title in Melbourne and equal the record of 22 Grand Slam held by the Spanish Rafael Nadal, who will debut against the English Jack Draper, 21 years old and 40 in the ranking.
Djokovic will be seeded fourth in Australia because the number one in the ranking, the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz, will not play the tournament due to injury, although he did announce his participation in the Argentina Open from February 11 to 19.
As for the rest of the Argentines, Francisco Cerúndolo (30) will play against his compatriot Guido Pella (no ranking), Sebastián Báez (41) against Jason Kubler (Australia, 29 years old and 86), Pedro Cachín (59) against Pablo Carreño Busta (Spain, 31 years old and 15), Federico Coria (76) against Marton Fucsovics (Hungary, 30 years old and 53), Tomás Etcheverry (80) against Gregoire Barrere (France, 28 years old and 88) and Facundo Bagnis (90) against Daniel Evans (England, 32 years old and 27) In the women’s draw, Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska (192) will face Ajla Tomljanovic (Croatia, 29 years old and 35), while the first seed and world number one Iga Swiatek, from Poland, will face the German Jule Niemeier in the first round.
In other interesting matches of the first round in the men’s draw, the Norwegian Casper Ruud will play the Czech Tomas Machac, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, finalist in the last two Australian tournaments, with the American Marcos Giron, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas against the French Quentin halys.
The Australian Open will hand out a tournament-record prize pool of just over $53 million, an increase of more than three percent over 2022, with both men’s and women’s champions earning $1,998,278.
Source: Ambito
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