Coco Gauff didn’t merely give Serena Williams vibes with her on-court attire; her problem-solving was also reminiscent of the 23-time Grand Slam champion as the reigning US Open champion figured out a tricky opening round to advance at the Australian Open.

“I was a little nervous in the first set,” she admitted on court after the match. “I think I did well returning, and then I found my serve towards the end of the second set. This is my third time playing her and she’s a tough player to play, but I’m happy with how I was able to manage my emotions today.

“When I was nervous, I told myself I feel good, I look good, so just have fun. That was able to relax me a little. I play tennis to have fun!”

Gauff won an eighth straight Grand Slam main draw match, winning the final eight games to defeat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, 6-3, 6-0 in exactly one hour on Rod Laver Arena.

The 19-year-old’s bright yellow New Balance kit turned heads before she even took the court on Monday, but it was up to Gauff, who arrived to the Australian Open undefeated after kicking off 2024 by defending her ASB Classic title in Auckland, to prove she was as much substance as style against Schmiedlova, a former world No. 26.

Gauff has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of women’s tennis in the last six months: since partnering with coach Brad Gilbert after an opening-round loss at Wimbledon last summer, she collected some of the biggest titles on tour, including victories in Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati before capturing her first Grand Slam title at the US Open.

She continued to make improvements over the off-season, getting visibly stronger and working on her serve with none other than former world No. 1 Andy Roddick.

Seeded fourth in Melbourne, Gauff, who spent Day 1 roasting the USTA’s Nickeloden-inspired hype graphic on social media, edged ahead by an early break and weathered some shaky moments on serve as Schmiedlova broke back three times in the opening set.

Gauff replied strong on return each time, and nabbed a second service hold when she needed it most, sealing the set at love with a forced forehand error from the Slovak.

“I think I’m always nervous in the first rounds of Slams! Honestly, it gave me more confidence today. My first round at the US Open was a tough one, so I knew could get through those tough moments. I think that’s when I was able to buckle down and take off from there.”

The American began the second set in identical fashion to the first, but played the front runner to perfection as she engineered a triple-break advantage and won a seventh straight game to put the finish line in sight. Up two match points, she clinched victory with a searing backhand into the open court to surge into the second round.

Sharing the bottom half of the women’s draw with defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, Gauff finds herself in a section with a slew of North American talents, including next opponent Caroline Dolehide, who finished runner-up in her first WTA 1000 final in Gaudalajara last fall.

Former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez is projected to be Gauff’s first seeded opponent, and the second week could see the teenager on a collision course with a resurgent Naomi Osaka, who plays No. 16 seed Caroline Garcia Monday night.

Milos Raonic vs. Alex de Minaur

Just because de Minaur is newly inducted into the Top 10 doesn’t mean Raonic is immediately out of the running. At any point, the Canadian can take command of a match with his serving prowess.

Unfortunately for Raonic, his return from injury hasn’t been the easiest. He’s played one match since the US Open, and physicality will of course be an issue. But if all goes to plan and Milos Milos-es like the former Wimbledon finalist can, then this match is truly going to be a pivotal turning point in his return.

Naomi Osaka vs. Caroline Garcia

Garcia has dipped outside the Top 10, but she can of course give returning favorite Osaka a serious challenge. Since her show-stopping 2022 WTA Finals performance, Garcia has been a feared opponent. She’s no longer competing like she has something to prove, but rather playing like she belongs in the sport’s top tier.

Osaka’s long-awaited return started in Brisbane, going 101, but all eyes will be on her in Melbourne. It could be a quick appearance, but something in  the Aussie air says she’s more prepared than ever before to compete at the highest level.

Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Dominic Thiem

Plain and simple, these are two ultra-talented players who have fallen into slumps. For Thiem, it was as a result of an injury. For Auger-Aliassime, it’s because the level of tennis around him rose to where he is now playing catch up.

That being said, there is no reason both of these players couldn’t be contenders for Slams again. This match should be a good barometer of much their games have improved since the previous season. Just as important, their intensity on court will showcase how incredibly hard they’re fighting for a return to the top.

Novak, Rafa, Iga, Coco…Dino?

Tennis has a handful of players who we know by their first names alone. After the opening day of the 2024 Australian Open, the consensus among the sport’s cognoscenti seems to be that Dino Prizmic, an 18-year-old newcomer from Croatia, is destined to join them.

His first name is certainly hard to forget. But that’s not the only thing this thick-legged, backwards-hatted, hard-headed teenager has going for him, it seems. Over four hours and one minute on Sunday night, Prizmic stole one of the biggest stages in tennis away from its biggest star, Novak Djokovic.

He didn’t end up stealing the match from the top seed, too, but he pushed him through four hard-fought sets (6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4). He also brought a packed Rod Laver Arena to its feet more than once, and kept the outcome in doubt until the last ball.

“We’re witnessing a new superstar of the sport, I really believe that,” former Slam champ and BBC radio commentator Pat Cash enthused as Prizmic outplayed Djokovic in the second-set tiebreaker and went up a break in the third.

“Prizmic got GAME,” another Aussie commentator, Nick Kyrgios, echoed on Twitter.

But don’t take it from two guys on the sidelines; take it from the man across the net. Djokovic spent most of his on-court interview with Jim Courier, and a good chunk of his press conference, composing an Ode to Dino.

“I had an amazing opponent tonight,” Djokovic said. “For an 18-year-old, he played so maturely and confidently on the court, fighting through, not giving up even when he was four down in the fourth set. Impressed with his mentality, with his approach, with his game.”

“It felt like playing myself in a mirror,” Djokovic said. “We’re going to see a lot of him in the future.”

More specifically, Djokovic said he loved Prizmic’s “game plan” and the way he “was using the whole court.”

You can see why he would like the Prizmic plan, because it was straight out of the Djokovic playbook.

The Croatian methodically moved the Serb left with his crosscourt backhand, then sent him scrambling back across the baseline with his crosscourt forehand. Prizmic made the court wider and controlled the rallies without having to swing all out or flirt with the sidelines.

There’s a compact, unhurried smoothness to his ground strokes—especially his backhand—that helps him absorb and redirect pace. It’s not surprising that Prizmic’s career highlight before last night was his Roland Garros junior title on clay last summer.

But Prizmic’s most useful attribute was his attitude. After a nervy first set, he never looked overwhelmed by the moment, never looked like he was just trying to make the score respectable, never seemed cowed or overly deferential to Djokovic. He played at his own pace, and wasn’t afraid to fist-pump and fire up the crowd as if he was every bit the equal of the man on the other side of the net.

“He came out there not with a desire just to play a nice set or enjoy the experience, but rather to win,” Djokovic said. “Kudos to him. It was impressive.”

“For me, every player is good, but Djokovic has his mental strength,” Prizmic told the ATPTour.com after qualifying for the main draw and learning who he would face in the first round. “I’ll act like it’s a normal match, not very stressed. I just want to play my best tennis, and I don’t have anything to lose, and that’s it.”

Prizmic was able to do that—right up until the moment he had something to lose. He reached his peak at 3-2 in the third set, when he broke Djokovic in an epic 10-minute game. Until then, Djokovic had played erratically and showed his frustration after virtually every miss. But going down a break in the third was a wake-up call. He dropped the hammer and won the next eight games to take a 4-0 lead in the fourth. To his credit, Prizmic didn’t cave; he clawed his way back to 5-4, and forced Djokovic to survive a long final game to close out the match.

Djokovic said he has been “under the weather for four or five days,” and he was nursing a wrist injury earlier this month at United Cup. He mistimed his forehand for stretches of this match, and he helped keep Prizmic in it with a loose service game in the second set. But he also raised his level when needed.

Was this a good test, or a bad sign, for Djokovic as he tries to become the first player to win 25 Grand Slam singles titles? You have to err on the side of saying it was a good test; he’s the champion Down Under until proven otherwise.

But the match also reminded me of his four-set win over another thick-legged 18-year-old, Holger Rune, in the first round of the 2021 US Open.

It was the start of a dangerous trend for Djokovic at that tournament. He would drop at least one set against four more opponents in New York; by the time he made the final, he had little left and went down to defeat against Daniil Medvedev.

That hardly means the same thing will happen in Melbourne. But it might mean that Djokovic has helped introduce us to another future star. After that US Open, Rune went on to crack the Top 10 within two years. Will Prizmic rise as fast, or as far? His first name alone should make us hope that he does.

The first day of the Australian Open was a teenage dream. A pair of 16-year-olds, Alina Korneeva and Brenda Fruhvirtova, both won their first-round matches at the year’s first Grand Slam tournament.

It’s the first time that two 16-year-olds won their first-round matches at a Grand Slam since 2007, when Caroline Wozniacki and Tamira Paszek did it at Wimbledon. (After coming out of reitrement last summer, Wozniacki, in an amusing twist, is in the women’s draw, too, and also won her first-round match on Sunday.)

The kids did it the hard way: After both won three matches in qualifying (Korneeva even saved match points in the second round), they won three-setters. In her Grand Slam main-draw debut, Korneeva was a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 winner over Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo, while Fruhvirtova also came from a set down to beat Romania’s Ana Bogdan, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, for her first win in her third main-draw appearance after two first-round losses last year.

“Of course, I’m so happy about the result what I did today,” Korneeva said after beating the world No. 52. “I think it’s difficult when you are 16 and you win first round of Grand Slam. It’s so difficult to feel this in my side, like in my body, because I really can’t understand that I’m here and I’m not play[ing] junior already.

“But at the same time I try already think about tomorrow, about the practice tomorrow, and I will watch my opponent tomorrow.”

Twelve months ago, Korneeva was the junior winner in Melbourne, as she beat Mirra Andreeva in a three-hour, 18-minute marathon for the title, 6-7(2), 6-4, 7-5. Andreeva quickly went on to have her own star turn in the pro ranks, as she finished in the Top 50 and was named the 2023 WTA Newcomer of the Year. She’ll hope to join her peers in the second round when she faces American Bernarda Pera on Monday.

Per the WTA, the last time at least two 16-year-olds reached the second round of the Australian Open was in 2005, when Nicole Vaidisova, Michaella Krajicek and Tatijana Golovin all did it.

“I think everybody, it doesn’t matter what age you are, you try to just to do everything on the court that you can, on the match, and that’s all,” Korneeva said.

“Of course, if you do everything on the court and if you do everything on the practice, the result will be, and that’s all. It doesn’t matter what age you are.”

Coached now by former Olympic champion Nicolas Massu of Chile, Fruhvirtova not only overcame a stern test from 66th-ranked Bogdan—who, at 31, is nearly twice her age—but a wrist problem.

The younger sister of 18-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova, who reached the fourth round at the Australian Open last year, Fruhvirtova needed five match points across two games to finally seal the victory.

“I was just focused in the moment because I really wanted to finish it,” Fruhvirtova said. “It was really amazing feeling to finally finish the match and then to get the win.

“The Grand Slams, there are only four in the year. So I was, like, ‘OK, even though I’m not feeling so well today, I still have to fight and try to win as many games and points as I can.

‘ I kind of got the rhythm and started to feel a little better in the second set. Then in the third set I was really in the match, and I was focused and fighting very hard. So that kind of helped me to get through.”

After beating Sorribes Tormo on Court 17, the Czech is assured of a center-stage moment up next: She’s the next opponent for defending champion and No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka, who dropped just one game in defeating Germany’s Ella Seidel in her return to Melbourne.

“It will be a great experience no matter who wins,” Fruhvirtova said, “but I’m really looking forward to the next round, and hopefully I will get some big court or bigger one than today.”