Australian wildcard Aleksandar Vukic pulls off an impressive first round upset

Aleksandar Vukic (Twitter)

On the opening day of the 2022 Australian Open, four seeded players were eliminated. On the men’s side were the 12th ranked Cameron Norrie of Great Britain and the 30th ranked Lloyd Harris of South Africa. On the women’s side, they were the 11th ranked Sofia Kenin of the United States and the 18th ranked Coco Gauff of the United States.

In men’s singles action, Norrie’s loss to Sebastian Korda of the United States was not that much of a huge surprise, when you consider the fact that Korda his one of the game’s rising stars. But it was very surprising when you realize that Norrie only won seven total games in losing in straight sets, 6-3, 6-0, 6-4. Likewise, the fact that Kenin is out is not all that surprising either given the fact she lost to a U.S. Open finalist in Madison Keys of the United States, 7-6, 7-5. The Kenin/Keys first round matchup was considered the second most fascinating first round matchup in our Australian Open preview,  while Gauff lost to Qiang Wang of China, 6-4, 6-2.

The fact that Harris, the men’s 30th seed, lost to Australian wildcard Aleksandar Vukic, needs to be considered a huge surprise. Vukic came away with a four-set, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 victory for the first grand slam title of his career. Vukic, who is currently ranked 144th in the world, did reach the quarterfinals of the tuneup event in Adelaide last week (where the beat Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik 7-6, 6-2 in the first round and American Steve Johnson 6-4, 7-5 in the second round), but has won only four matches in his ATP career. His other two wins came a year ago, when he beat Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan, in an Australian Open tuneup event, 6-4, 7-5, and Pablo Andujar of Spain, 7-5, 6-4, in the first round of Indian Wells. Harris meanwhile won 30 matches in 2021, and reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open and the finals of Dubai.

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