Apia International Sydney Tennis - Australian Open Series

Djokovic spearheads Wednesday action

Tuesday 13 January 2009 31 Comments »

World No.3 Novak Djokovic headlines another star-studded line up on Wednesday at the Medibank International Sydney.

The tournament continues to set a cracking pace with the biggest names in world tennis striking their incredible returns down the line and cross court at the Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre.

Not only has the Ken Rosewall Arena captured the amazing atmosphere of this year’s tournament but so too have the other courts around the complex.

Djokovic is playing in Sydney for the very first time, and faces Frenchman Paul Henri Mathieu. This will be their fourth meeting and the head to head is 2-1 to Djokovic.

In his first round Lleyton Hewitt produced his tremendous fighting spirit against Julien Benneteau in a match that lasted more than two hours. He will have to do it again when he faces Serb Janko Tipsarevic who can be incredibly unpredictable on court.

Like Djokovic, fourth seeded Argentine David Nalbandian is also a total newcomer to the Medibank International Sydney. He’s played Davis Cup at this venue but never the tournament and he takes on the tricky Frenchman Michael Llodra.

The French continue to dominate the men’s field lead by Gilles Simon who comes in as the second seed. Last year he was unseeded here but not long after went on a run of tremendous results that saw him break into the world’s top ten and reach a career high ranking of six.

The charismatic Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will also be on court. The 2008 Medibank International Sydney was a breakthrough tournament for him because he won the doubles with Richard Gasquet and then reached the Australian Open singles final and finished the year dynamically by qualifying for the Tennis Masters Cup. He faces Simone Bolelli of Italy.

Joining all these sensational names will be Serena Williams who plays the very talented Dane Caroline Wozniacki, Dinara Safina who takes on another tremendous talent in Alize Cornet and Svetlana Kuznetsova, who plays veteran Ai Sugiyama.

Olympic gold medallist Elena Dementieva faces Polish teenager Agnieszka Radwanska and Chris Guccione, last year’s finalist, who for the second year running beat Tomas Berdych at the Medibank International Sydney and now plays Jarkko Nieminen.

The strength of the tournament is so amazing that the likes of Nalbandian, Safina, Guccione and Kuznetsova are scheduled on Court 1 and the $9.90 Ground Pass provides fans the amazing opportunity to watch players who have been Grand Slam champions, Grand Slam finalists, Davis Cup and Fed Cup players.

Draws

Order of play

Video: player interviews and press conferences

Tags: Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams

You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.