Serbian Novak Djokovic showed no signs of an injury that could harm his hopes of winning the Australian Open in three weeks as he defeated young American Sebastian Korda 6-7 (8 ), 7-6 (3), 6-4, Sunday, in the Adelaide International tennis final.
Djokovic may have worried Australian Open organizers when he said after his semi-final match against Daniil Medvedev on Saturday that he was bothered by a tight hamstring. He did, however, mention that those tightness lessened as the game progressed.
If there had been any problems, they would undoubtedly have been apparent during this ultimate duel which lasted more than three hours and which allowed Djokovic to collect his 92e career singles victory.
In addition, he won a second title in Adelaide, 16 years after winning the tournament in 2007, at the age of 19.
To do so, however, Djokovic had to erase a match point as he trailed 5-6 in the second set, and he had to fight hard to overcome the 22-year-old American, who is the son of former Australian Open champion Petr Korda.
Earlier in the day, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka won the 11e tournament of her career on the WTA Tour — but her first in almost two years — thanks to a 6-2, 7-6 (4) win in the women’s singles final over Linda Noskova.
The second seed in the tournament and the fifth player in the world, Sabalenka did not lose a single set during the entire tournament.
She seemed to be heading for another relatively easy win after the first run. However, Noskova, an 18-year-old Czech who had to go through qualifying, was much more competitive in the second set.
She managed to win her serve in each of the games of this second set and was able to increase the pressure on Sabalenka’s serve, especially thanks to her powerful returns from the backhand.
Sabalenka’s last singles win was in May 2021 in Madrid. In 2022, she participated in three finals.