Day 2 : Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit

Day 2 was much busier than yesterday in the amount of tennis and as the Loaf would say 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Thankfully all of the matches were on the same side of the complex, though walking to the other side is a good cardio exercise.


Bautista Agut vs. Travaglia

On paper this match looked like it would be a routine straight setter. Then tennis isn't played on paper, if it was just rankings based then the lower ones wouldn't turn up.

Bautigol started slowly, making an unusual amount of unforced errors due to perhaps some nerves and Travaglia was successfully going for broke. He served for the first set and was broken. RBA played a solid tiebreaker and took the set.

Bautista Agut

Bautigol settled into a bit of a groove and improved his level a bit, whereas Travaglia's dropped as the big shots weren't going in as previously, comfortably took the 2nd set.

Based on the above, you'd have believed RBA was going to win it easily. Travaglia raised his level, hitting more winners and took his chances to take the 3rd set. He was unable to sustain that level and Bautigol was there to take advantage to win in 4. Not the best performance but got the W, which is all that counts.


Sinner vs. Sousa

Was watching this match while waiting for the other ones to start.

This was a perfect 1st round match for Sinner as he got to hit a lot of balls but the result was never really in doubt here. As for Sousa, I don't think he will get back in the top 100, but there were some good signs..

Daniel vs. Barrios Vera

This was a qualifer vs. qualifier match. Daniel was the most impressive player in qualies whereas Barrios got through for the first time in Melbourne

The first set of this match was crucial. Both players weren't at their best. It's a big match for them and nerves played a part. Daniel was shanking a lot of forehands and Barrios was just getting the ball in for the most part, but hit some excellent volleys.

The turning point in this match was the 1st set tiebreaker. Barrios was up 5-1 and through a combination of passive play and more aggression from Daniel, the Japanese player was able to turn it around winning 7-5.

Once Daniel had won the breaker. He started serving better, hitting more freely which allowed him to hit more penetrating strokes to keep Barrios pinned behind the baseline.

Halfway through the 2nd set it was obvious that Barrios was gassed and there was little resistance in the last 2 sets, which Daniel took for the loss of 2 games. He plays Andy Murray in the next round, prepared to be junked around.

Davidovich Fokina vs. Bolt

This was a good draw for Foki as Bolt has been in very poor form. Even then Bolt will always get a wildcard as caudillo Lleyton Hewitt is a huge fan and what he says goes.

Davidovich Fokina

The only people who were cheering for Foki were his two coaches, myself and a couple of other people. There really isn't too much to say about this match. Conditions were cool and windy. Foki did enough to keep the crowd quiet and didn't have too many emotional foibles. He should have won in straight sets and he did. He's excited about the next match with Auger Aliassime, whereas today was get the win and get out .

Seppi vs. Majchrzak

This sums up the match perfectly.
Not a good performance from the King of South Tyrol and this maybe the last time we see him in Australia. Hopefully this is not the case, but time is the one thing we can't cheat and every generation has its own disease, which needs to be regenerated.

The cool conditions definitely didn't help Seppi at all, as he has a reasonably flat game the timing needs to be spot on. It was definitely off as there were errors flowing like Santa on speed at Christmas.

In addition the young Pole was swinging very hard and the shots were going in. There were some audacious winners and even the mis hits were landing in good positions..

In tennis just as in life, sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit.