𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Djokovic losing focus, or rather refreshing his mental game.

He balloons a forehand into the Melbourne night sky, Lehecka is on the board.

Zverev back in control now too, he leads 2-1 against Humbert in the fourth set and is 2-1 up in sets, too.

Too easy, Djokovic out in front and snatches a first set in 37 minutes.

Murray with a gentle applause… But 12 unforced errors at the end for Lehecka, he needs to screw his head back on here, Henman is baffled.

He says: “The reality is you have to be better than one player each day, how well is he playing? OK, but his opponent has donated to him three games.”

Now then, 0-30, a little hole for Lehecka, but he forces Djokovic deep, advances to the net and demands a high, guided backhand lob from the Serbian, it drifts out and the Czech has a foothold in the game.

But that’s poor, an unforced error and Djokovic has two break points, here we go… A second serve crashes into the net, dismal and a nightmare way to hand Djokovic a chance to serve for the first set.

“Horrific,” says Henman. “That was a late Christmas present for Djokovic.”

Djokovic holding his nerve once more, but Lehecka standing up so far and not gifting his illustrious opponent much.

That was a captivating rally, the low slice from Lehecka is the key shot, claims Henman. It drifts just long, but he still has two more game points to level this up.

ACE! Three games apiece, this one bubbling away nicely… Meanwhile Zverev is 3-2 up, on serve, in the third set against Humbert, it’s 1-1 there remember, the Frenchman battling hard.

Sir Andy Murray calm court side and just sipping his water. Djokovic comfortable and holds serve to regain the lead.

“It’s good enough, you only need to be better than one player each day, the challenges will get greater, it’s always the test of adversity, it’s not complicated when you’re playing well,” says Tim Henman.

“We’ll get a greater understanding of where his game is at when he’s challenged more.”

That’s a positive start, despite starting with a double fault.

He caps it with an ace and walks straight to his chair, no emotion, he is DIALLED in.

Humbert has the second set against Zverev now too, 1-1 there. An upset bubbling, perhaps?

Here come the players… Jiri Lehecka walks out at Rod Laver Arena.

A gift of a title in the build-up after Reilly Opelka’s injury, he’ll hope to prove he would’ve won that match anyway.

And Novak Djokovic follows him… Focused, less animated than his opponent.

Well, then, Ugo Humbert is battling and he has a reward, a break in the second set, he leads 3-2 after Zverev rattled off the first set 6-1.

The Frenchman has been gritty since the second set begun, he’ll hope to force the German into a gruelling contest with all the expectations on him to advance and finally crack a Grand Slam.

Gauff’s three-set victory in the Grand Slam tournament’s main stadium finished on Sunday afternoon local time in Melbourne — about an hour after TikTok could no longer be found on prominent app stores on Saturday in the United States.

A U.S. federal law that would have banned the popular social media platform was scheduled to go into effect. Apple and Google app stores are prohibited from offering TikTok under a law that required its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S.

The Spaniard was pushed hard in a competitive first set, but Draper’s body, battered from three straight five-set matches in Melbourne, could not keep pace.

An injury timeout after the first set was followed by a tough second set, where Alcaraz admittedly upped his game, and with a two-set deficit, the Briton called time on his efforts.

Alcaraz was clearly sympathetic to Draper in the closing stages of the contest, with the pair previously poised to link up in a pre-season camp, only for the Briton to pull out due to an injury scare. And the 21-year-old scribbled a note to his fellow player on the lens of one of the cameras at Rod Laver Arena.