ADELAIDE, 2 Jan: Novak Djokovic lost his doubles match but received a warm welcome from the crowd at the Adelaide International on Monday.
\nThe 21-time major winner was deported from Australia a year ago after arriving unvaccinated against COVID-19 at a time when the country was still subject to strict quarantine regulations and proof of vaccination.
\nHis first match was a low-key doubles encounter alongside Vasek Pospisil, and the pair lost 4-6 6-3 (10-5) to Tomislav Brkic and Gonzalo Escobar.
\nQuestions about how he would be received were quickly answered when Djokovic\u2019s supporters flocked to the stadium to welcome him back.
\nDjokovic begins his singles campaign on Tuesday against Constant Lestienne as he builds up to the Australian Open, where he is looking for a record-extending 10th title.
\nAlso Monday, Czech teenager Linda Noskova produced one of the first shocks of the 2023 season, beating eighth-ranked Daria Kasatkina of Russia 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-3 in the opening round.
\nThe 18-year-old Noskova came through a tough qualifying draw in which she beat world No. 58 Anna Kalinskaya and No. 43 Anastasia Potapova before achieving the biggest win of her career over third-seeded Kasatkina.
\nThe 102-ranked Noskova is competing in only her fifth main draw on the WTA Tour and had never played, let alone beaten, a top-10 player. She had been 0-2 against top-20 opponents.
\nHer best win before Monday had been over 38th-ranked Aliz\u00e9 Cornet in the second round en route to the semifinals in Prague last July.
\nNoskova took the first set comfortably in 46 minutes and broke to lead 4-3 in the second before Kasatkina broke back. She served for the match at 6-5 in but Kasatkina again fought back to take the set in a tiebreaker.
\nBut the Czech revived to win the deciding set and the match in just over 2-1\/2 hours, finishing with a sweeping cross-court forehand on match point. She broke Kasatkina\u2019s serve eight times overall, hit 57 winners off the ground and won 21 of the 24 points when she came to net.
\nKasatkina had an eventful 2022 season during which she broke back into the top 10. She also came out as gay and openly denounced Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.
\nNoskova reached a ranking high of 87 in 2022 and qualified for the main draws at the French and U.S. Opens.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of ups and downs but I think it was a really good season,\u201d Noskova said. \u201cI started around 300, I think, and then around 100 now, so it\u2019s a pretty good progress.
\n\u201cObviously I need to pick it up a little bit to get back into the (top) 100 but hopefully I\u2019m going to achieve it this year.\u201d
\nNoskova now will face the winner of the match between Australia\u2019s Priscilla Hon and American qualifier Claire Liu.
\nLater, fourth-seeded Veronika Kudermetova of Russia beat Amanda Anisimova of the United States 6-3, 6-0.
\nOn the men\u2019s side, Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan upset fifth-seeded Holger Rune of Denmark 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ADELAIDE, 2 Jan: Novak Djokovic lost his doubles match but received a warm welcome from the crowd at the Adelaide International on Monday. The 21-time major winner was deported from Australia a year ago after arriving unvaccinated against COVID-19 at a time when the country was still subject to strict quarantine regulations and proof of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}