The Aussie Open First Week Recap

NextGen Breaks Through, DC in Her Villain Era, Djokovic Boycotts, Lucky Loser Wins Big, Medvedev Catches a Fine and Monfils Family Cooks

The 2025 AO kicked off with one of the more ridiculous and exciting first weeks. There were stunning upsets, off court and on court controversies, epic matches, smashed cameras, hilarious quotes, interview boycotts and more. Lets get into it.

The NextGen Movement

When the draw came out and 18-year old Joao Fonseca was drawn against (9) Andrey Rublev it was on everyone’s upset alert. Joao had dominated qualifying and was coming off winning the NextGen Finals this past December. Those upset alerts ended up being justified as Joao blasted Andrey off the court, a top 10 win for the teen. Immediately the tournament seemed to be the coronation of a NextGen star joining the current crop of superstars. In addition, a couple days before, 20 year old Alex Michelsen took out (11) Stef Tsitsipas and it seemed a generational movement was brewing.

Notably, Michelsen even compared Fonseca to world No.1 Jannik Sinner:

“He’s going to be sick! He reminds me of a mini-Sinner. The way they hit the ball, you don’t come by it very often.”

Which given that Fonseca had hit the hardest forehand of the tournament up to that point, may not be that far fetched.

The NextGen Movement (NGM) continued when 19-year old Nishesh Basavareddy gave Djokovic a fight in the opening round, taking the first set and playing what Novak called “lights-out tennis”. Subsequently, 19-year old Jakub Mensik took out (6) Casper Ruud and the NGM grew strength. Those players in their mid-to-late 20s like Rublev, Tsitsipas and Ruud seemed ready to be put out to pasture.

But then Lorenzo Sonego and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, more or less journeymen on the tour quickly ended Fonseca and Mensik’s AO progress, winning one for their generation. But the NGM struck back on the same night as 19-year old Learner Tien took out (5) Daniil Medvedev. Those wins make this year’s AO just the third Grand Slam¹ in which three teenagers have beaten top ten opponents.

Tien and Michelsen both won their next matches making a run into the second week of the tournament but then kind of ran out of gas in the fourth round. Sonego once again clipped a wing off of the NGM, beating Tien in four sets and Michelsen seemed to have no legs in his defeat to Alex de Minaur. Regardless, the NGM is making moves in 2025.

Danielle Collins In Her Villain Era

When Danielle Collins defeated Australian Destanee Aiava, she not only raised the ire of the Australian crowd during the match but outright incited them after. On her way to shake hands at the net she taunted the crowd, putting her hand to her ear, mouthing ‘how bout that’, kissing her hand and slapping her butt and then doubling down in the post-match on-court interview, her post match press conference and on Instagram. She reminded the booing crowd that they were paying her salary and that they were going to be sending her and her coach on a five star vacation. It was a spectacle that had shades of a Karen telling a police officer that she pays their salary when he won’t arrest the people partying in the park without a permit.

Two nights later, she walked out on RLA to face Madison Keys and was booed relentlessly by the Australian crowd. After she lost in straights to Madison, the Collins-salary-paying crowd let her have it again. DC will walk home with a cheque of approximately $290,000 Aussie dollars and in return the Australian crowd has received a golden ticket to booing Danielle Collins for the rest of her career.

So who really has the last laugh? Well that would be the @wwos social media admin with this caption:

five star performance by the @wwos social media admin

Djokovic Boycotts Post-Match Interview

Novak Djokovic expressed admiration and love for Danielle Collins after she gave it back to the crowd, which may have been some foreshadowing as, even though Novak has won this tournament 10 times, he was mixing it up with boo birds and hecklers through the first few rounds. Novak has been especially ornery, even pointing at hecklers to take a hike after his third round win over Machac.

And then, after Novak’s straight sets fourth round victory over Jiri Lehecka, with Jim Courier waiting in the wings, mic in hand, Novak boycotted the on-court interview. He took the mic from Courier and thanked the crowd, telling them he’ll see them in the next round. The stunned Australian crowd booed Novak as he left the court (though he signed some autographs on the way out).

Commentators assumed he didn’t want to talk because he was fed up with the boo birds and hecklers. However, at his post-match press conference he explained that it was due to offensive comments made to Serbian fans about himself by Tony Jones of Channel 9. As the official broadcaster of the AO, Novak refused the interview in protest, maybe thinking that Jim Courier was working for Channel 9. Unfortunately, Jim Courier was there in his capacity as interviewer for the Australian Open/Tennis Australia and thus innocently got caught in the crossfire of a Novak-spurred controversy.

Here’s the Tony Jones video that had Novak up in arms:

Don’t know much about this Tony Jones character and whether this is his schtick but he seemed to be joking and while it wasn’t that funny and a bit rude, it didn’t seem like something that needed to be outright protested. But hey, maybe Novak’s still a little bit raw after he got booted out of Australia. The crowd’s reaction when he steps out for the blockbuster Alcaraz quarterfinal will be something to see.

Tony Jones has since come out with his side of the story, saying that when he heard rumblings that Djokovic’s camp was unhappy with his ‘joke’, he immediately searched Novak’s camp out and apologized directly. This was 48 hours ago, prior to Novak’s match with Lehecka.

The plot thickens. Was Djoker trying to take a stand cause he was genuinely hurt, maybe poking at the wound of 2022’s deportation? Or was this manufactured to create some fire in his belly, take something personal to spur him to the championship ala MJ? Only time and the rest of the tournament will tell.

Lucky Loser Wins Big

Eva Lys had a flight scheduled for the third day of the main draw of the Australian Open. She never made that flight. After losing in the third round of qualifying², she hung around as lucky losers³ are told to do in case of withdrawals in the first round. Eva was 3rd on the list of lucky losers, not someone who usually gets in the tournament, but as luck would have it Anna Kalinskaya came down with a virus and withdrew 10 minutes(!) before her match was to start.

Eva was then installed in her place, too suddenly to even be nervous she said and promptly won that match, switched her flight and then couldn’t stop winning, becoming the first LL to make it to the Australian Open fourth round. Lys told the press she actually rebooked her flight after her first match but picked the end of the first week not thinking she would progress that far.

"We actually changed the flight to [Sunday]," she laughed. "Right now, I think after the press conference we're going to go and try to change it a little bit further. It's actually really funny. We just picked a date. We're like, okay, Sunday is six days away. We're just going to pick Sunday."

Sunday wasn’t enough because she had a Monday night date with world No. 2 Iga Swiatek. That date ended up being a one hour trip to Iga’s bakery (6-0,6-1) but nevertheless, the 23-year-old world No. 128 will walk away with six times the money she was going to make if she made that post-qualifying flight (cute video where she found out it was $420,000 Australian smackaroos), along with 240 points that will catapult her up the rankings. The fourth round showing is easily her best result at a major, showing that sometimes it pays to be a loser and a little lucky.

Medvedev Catches Big Fine

Medvedev might have had the quote of the tournament in the first round when he complimented his opponent Kasidit Samrej saying that if he played that well he could have whatever he wanted in tennis, money, girls, casino, whatever. Daniil’s post-match interviews are always must-see TV.

Losing in the second round of the AO pocketed Daniil about $150,000 AUD but he’s going to have to give some of that back as he was hit with $123,000 in fines for two Medvedev-ian incidents. The hard-court specialist destroyed his racket on a net camera and then gifted us with another golden quote:

“The camera was very, very strong, because my racquet didn't handle the damage, but the camera did. I was very surprised. The fine is usually for breaking the racquet, and the camera is going to cost some, but I don't think GoPro is that expensive.'

He later threw his racquet at ad boards and after the loss to Tien he skipped out on the post-match news conference, which to be fair was super late as the match ended at 3am.

What’s interesting is that Djokovic not only re-quoted Medvedev’s money, girls, casino line but he also copied Medvedev’s boycott. They really are kindred spirits.

Monfils Familly Cooking

Everyone is happy for Gael Monfils. Following up his victory in the Auckland ATP 250⁴, he upset (4) Taylor Fritz in four sets, danced like no one’s watching, and then he had some inspiring words about whether his dream was to win the tournament. I defy anyone to not like this man. Gael seems to be taking a page out of 2024 Grigor Dimitrov’s book with a late career resurgence and you just felt his victory over Taylor was a ‘confidence win’, that perfect mix of being on a hot streak, full of confidence, being old and not giving any fucks.

Not only that, after Gael’s victory over Fritz, his wife Elina Svitolina was next up and she took on the family business of upsetting 4th seeds on Margaret Court Arena, taking out (4) Jasmine Paolini in 3 sets. Elina has proceeded to make the quarterfinals, but unfortunately Gael had to withdraw in the fourth set from his fourth round match with Ben Shelton, the hard yards and grind from his Auckland and Aussie runs catching up with his 38 year old body, but here’s hoping Gael continues the fine run of form. He’ll be next seen in Elina’s box for her quarterfinal match where she’ll face off with Madison Keys for a seat at the semis.

The Monfils family is on top of the world right now.

1. Since the ATP rankings started in 1973

2. To Australian Destanee Aiava, she of the Danielle Collins controversy.

3. Lucky losers are the last few who lost in qualifying, lined up to take the spot of anyone who drops out the main draw after the draw has been released.

4. Where he became the oldest player to claim an ATP singles title, passing a guy named Fed something from Basel 2019.