MELBOURNE, Australia – Jannik Sinner dropped just three matches and spent just over an hour at Rod Laver Arena to kick off his bid for an Australian Open three-peat.
No. 2 Sinner was leading 6-2, 6-1 when Hugo Gaston suddenly retired with an undisclosed injury on Tuesday evening.
“I saw that he wasn’t serving at a very high tempo in the second set,” Sinner said, but “that’s not how you want to win the match.”
It was an anti-climatic way to complete his first competitive match on Melbourne Park center court since his victory over Alexander Zverev 12 months ago to capture back-to-back Australian titles.
Sinner aims to become the fourth player to win three consecutive men’s titles at the Australian Open.
In a match between left-handers, American Ben Shelton defeated France’s Ugo Humbert 6-3, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5) to reach the second round of the Australian Open on Tuesday.
Shelton was a semifinalist here a year ago and was also a semifinalist at the US Open in 2023.
The eighth-seeded Shelton said it was one of the toughest first-round matches he could have faced, with Humbert at No. 33. If Humbert was ranked 32nd or better, he would not have played a seeded player in the opening round.
“I thought I stayed really calm today,” Shelton said. “On a court like this, playing Ugo in the first round is a tough task. I felt like I found some of my better tennis late in the match.”
In other men’s matches, fifth seed Lorenzo Musetti advanced when Belgium’s Raphael Collignon retired in the fourth set. The result was 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5, 3-2 when the Belgian player retired due to reported cramps and dizziness.
Also taking the lead was Eliot Spizzirri, who defeated rising star Joao Fonseca, the 19-year-old Brazilian, 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2; No. 15 Karen Khachanov; and Sebastian Baez, who defeated Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3.
This report used information from The Associated Press.
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