Rafael Nadal is bidding for a record 21st Grand Slam men’s singles trophy, but rival Novak Djokovic’s attempt to win a third consecutive Australian Open could get in the way of that endeavor.
In the women’s bracket, Serena Williams will try again to tie the mark for the overall mark for major singles championships, 24, but fellow American Sofia Kenin’s bid to repeat and earn just her second such title is noteworthy, too.
And yet, as easy as it is to assemble a list of significant storylines for the tournament, nothing hangs over the next two weeks at Melbourne Park quite like questions involving the coronavirus. There is, after all, still a pandemic in progress.
“During the tough months of quarantine in Spain, (there) have been too many problems to think about tennis, no?” said Nadal, who by winning his 13th French Open title this past October equaled Roger Federer’s record of 20 major men’s singles championships, three ahead of Djokovic.
No matter how much better Australia has contained its COVID-19 outbreak than countries such as the United States, a reminder of the precarious nature of a large, international sports event came just a few days before the scheduled start of the year’s first major. A full day of competition at the half-dozen tuneups in Melbourne was postponed because of a positive test for a worker at a hotel that housed 160 players in January; the draw for the main event was pushed back a day as well.