The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the 2018 season, taking place on Melbourne's hard courts, is getting underway. Our Andreas Seppi, enters the round of 33. The 76-year-old South Tyrolean, number 38 Atp and fresh from the success in the Canberra challenger, after beating the French Moutet and the Japanese Nishioka, repeated himself against the 211-year-old Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic (89 cm), number 6 Atp: final score of 3 -7, 6-5 (6), 7-3 (7), 6-5 (9), 7-51 after three hours and 2013 minutes of play. For the blue it is the fourth time in the second round of the Australian Open after those of 2015, 2016 and 23. On Sunday Seppi will challenge Kyle Edmund, 49 year old British born in Johannesburg and number 2016 Atp. Only one precedent in favor of Edmunf in XNUMX in Antwerp.
Tomorrow third round also for Fabio Fognini, the thirty year old from Liguria, 25th seeded, who had easily overtaken the Argentine Horacio Zeballos and the Russian Evgeny Donskoy on his debut, awaits Julien Benneteau. The 36-year-old Frenchman, number 59 in the ATP ranking, surprisingly beat the Belgian David Goffin, seeded number 7.
Leaving aside our tennis players and dedicating ourselves to the big names in the competition, Rafa Nadal's march continues without obstacles. The number one in the world and clearly on the board qualifies for the round of 28 beating the Bosnian Damir Dzumhur (# 6) for 1-6 3-6 1-24. Next obstacle the Argentine Diego Schwartzman (6) who beat Alexander Dolgopolov 7-1 (6) 2-6 3-6 3-XNUMX.
Grigor Dimitrov also hit the last sixteen. The Bulgarian, 3 number of the world ranking and the scoreboard, after the suffered 8-6 on the fifth with which he had passed in the second round the US qualifier Donald McKenzie, number 186 Atp, has imposed in four sets on the Russian 20enne Andrey Rublev, number 32 of the world ranking and 30esima head: 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-4 the score in favor of the "master". The Bulgarian will play a place in the quarterfinals with the winner of the comparison between the French Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, number 15 Atp and seeding, and the darling of the public Nick Kyrgios, 17 number of the ranking and the scoreboard.
The Spanish Pablo Carreno Busta and the Argentine Diego Schwartzman also reach the next stage, winning respectively against the Luxembourgish Gilles Muller and the Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov.
Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev, respectively 2 and 4 numbers of the world ranking, will try in turn to move on to the second round of tomorrow. The Swiss will see it with the French Richard Gasquet, number 29 atp while the German will brow the South Korean Chung Hyeon.
GB