For players battling on the ATP Challenger Tour, competing in the main draw of a Grand Slam is a special opportunity. It is often the reward for years of hard work and dedication to honing their talents. Nothing is taken for granted at this stage and the ability to clash with the game’s elite can greatly impact a player’s career.

This is the opportunity that awaits World No. 231 Mitchell Krueger and World No. 238 James Duckworth as they begin their Australian Open quests. Their first-round opponents? None other than the top-two players in the draw: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

When the former champions step foot on Rod Laver Arena to open their bids, the spotlight won’t only be shining on them. The world will be watching as Krueger and Duckworth enter one of the biggest stages of their careers.

Krueger will look to dent Djokovic’s impenetrable Aussie armour when he meets the six-time champ in Tuesday’s night session. For the 25-year-old, this will be his second Grand Slam main draw appearance after punching his ticket from qualifying. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, he is already battle-tested at Melbourne Park, with all three of his qualifying encounters having gone the distance.

Krueger has been plotting his ascent on the ATP Challenger Tour for more than four years and was finally rewarded with his biggest breakthrough at last year’s US Open. There, he qualified for his first Grand Slam after saving three match points in his second-round match and rallying from a set and a break down a day later.

Having won a pair of matches at the ATP Masters 1000 level – in Cincinnati (2017) and Indian Wells (2018) – he will be in search of his third tour-level victory and undoubtedly his biggest. 

While Krueger will face a Top 10 opponent for the first time, Duckworth has plenty of experience against top competition. His Monday afternoon meeting with Nadal will be his fifth against the Top 10 at a Grand Slam. In 2014, he squared off against Roger Federer in his opening match in Melbourne.

But his impending encounter against 2009 champion Nadal will arguably be his most rewarding of them all. A former top 100 stalwart, Duckworth’s story is one of unyielding determination. The Sydney native went under the knife on five occasions – all in the span of 13 months in 2017-18 – enduring three foot surgeries, as well as shoulder and elbow operations.

But, having made his return to the court in May of last year, it did not take long for Duckworth to return to the winners’ circle. After pushing Andy Murray in a tight four-set affair at the US Open, he secured his sixth Challenger title weeks later in Cary, North Carolina, prevailing as a qualifier. Having resided outside the Top 1,000 of the ATP Rankings upon his return, he has soared more than 800 spots to his current position of No. 238.

And Duckworth would go on to earn his spot in the Australian Open main draw after clinching the Wild Card Play-off in December. 

With Krueger turning 25 on Saturday and Duckworth turning 27 a week from Monday, both birthdays will be ones they won’t soon forget.

Roger Federer and Andy Murray have long been two of the leaders — along with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — of the current generation of ATP Tour stars. Murray at one point led Federer 6-2 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series (Federer now leads 14-11), challenging the Swiss plenty over the years.

But as captivating as their matches have been, there has always been plenty of respect between the two greats. So it’s no surprise that after Murray announced on Friday at the Australian Open that due to hip pain he will retire, at the latest, at Wimbledon this year, Federer had nothing but support to give the Scot.

“I guess everybody can understand where he comes from. At some point when you feel like you’re never going to get back to 100 per cent, you’ve had the success that Andy has had, you can only understand the decision,” said Federer, who has won the past two Australian Opens. “I was disappointed and sad, a little bit shocked, to know now that we’re going to lose him at some point. But we’re going to lose everybody at some point. It’s just now that it’s definite.

“Of course, I hope that he can play a good Australian Open and he can keep playing beyond that, really finish the way he wants to at Wimbledon. That’s what I hope for him… It’s a tough one, but one down the road he can look back on and be incredibly proud of everything he has achieved.”

For his part, Federer is set for his first tour-level event of the year following an off-season full of training and preparation. The 37-year-old Swiss has been inside the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings since last week’s Sydney champion, #NextGenATP star Alex de Minaur, was just eight months old (11 October 1999). Yet Federer says he is not slowing down.

“I think I was probably even able to work a bit harder than I thought I was going to. I didn’t miss any sessions. I think I added on top of it. I came out of it actually strong,” Federer said of the off-season.

“I’m very happy with the preparation thus far. Super-excited that it’s just a day away now from my next match. This is going to be exciting.”

On paper, World No. 3 Federer is set to face a player, Denis Istomin, who is 96 spots below him in the ATP Rankings. The Swiss has won all six of their FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings. But the six-time Australian Open champion is fully focused on the Uzbek, who stunned another six-time Melbourne titlist, Novak Djokovic, at the same event two years ago en route to the fourth round.

“I think the focus really is on those early rounds, especially tomorrow. It has to be. I know what Denis did to Novak. I watched basically the entire game a couple years ago when he beat Novak here,” Federer said. “I’ve had some tough ones against him in the past. He can play well on fast courts, and that’s what it’s going to be a little bit here as well.”

While Istomin has taken the opening set against Federer in their past two meetings, both of which occurred in the third seed’s hometown of Basel (2013-14), the 99-time tour-level winner is confident that he is well-prepared.

“I’m playing good tennis. I’m confident that, I think, it needs a good performance by my opponent probably to beat me. That’s always a good thought. But then again, I think I’m playing well,” Federer said. “Depending on how you match up with your opponent, who is going to win the big points, the margins are so slim nowadays that I’m just not thinking too far ahead. I don’t think I should because I think that would be a mistake. I hope I can put myself in contention as the tournament goes deeper, but we’ll see.”

Federer isn’t worrying about the possibility of earning title No. 100 this fortnight by lifting his third consecutive Australian Open trophy. All he sees is the one man across the net on Monday: Istomin.

Alex de Minaur became the youngest Sydney International champion since 2001 on Saturday, beating Andreas Seppi 7-5, 7-6(5) to lift his first ATP Tour title.

The 19-year-old, who improves to 9-2 at the event, is the youngest winner in Sydney since mentor Lleyton Hewitt claimed the title in 2001. Sydney-born De Minaur is the first Australian champion at the tournament since Bernard Tomic in 2013. It marked the young Australian’s second victory of the day after beating Gilles Simon in a semi-final pushed into Saturday by rain.

In his second straight Sydney final, the fifth seed won 75 per cent of first-serve points (45/60) to improve on his runner-up finish at the event in 2018. Ranked No. 167, De Minaur made a shock run to the championship match 12 months ago, falling in three sets to Daniil Medvedev.

Last year, De Minaur also reached the Citi Open final (l. to A. Zverev) and the Next Gen ATP Finals championship match (l. to Tsitsipas) in a breakthrough season. The Australian rose from No. 208 to No. 31 in the ATP Rankings and was named ATP Newcomer of the Year after earning 28 tour-level victories throughout his 2018 campaign.

After conceding an immediate break of serve in the opening game of the match, De Minaur levelled the set at 3-3 with great anticipation and court coverage. The set appeared to be heading towards a tie-break until De Minaur broke in the 12th game to take a one-set lead, attacking Seppi’s forehand to extract errors and earn short balls from his opponent.

Once again, Seppi was the first to strike in the second set. The Italian earned his first break point of the set with sharp reactions before capitalising on a double fault from his opponent to lead 4-3. But De Minaur immediately responded, breaking back for 4-4 as Seppi misfired groundstrokes on consecutive points. In the tie-break, De Minaur recovered from a mini-break down on three occasions, before clinching the title on his first championship point as Seppi fired a backhand into the net.

At 34 years of age, Seppi was bidding to become the oldest Sydney champion since Mal Anderson in 1973. In his 12th appearance at the event, the World No. 37 was aiming to lift his first title since the 2012 VTB Kremlin Cup (d. Bellucci).

De Minaur receives 250 ATP Ranking points and collects $90,990 in prize money for lifting the trophy. Seppi gains 150 ATP Ranking points and receives $49,205.

Did You Know?
Since the start of the 2018 ATP Tour season, De Minaur has reached a career-high ATP Ranking on 19 occasions.