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MELBOURNE, Australia – The match leading off Rod Laver Arena Saturday could have been Zheng Qinwen vs Emma Raducanu – which would have made Nike (and a lot of other sponsors) pretty happy.

Instead, it’s a potentially intriguing matchup between Zheng and Wang Yafan, a predecessors from the Chinese system who got around the top 50 – then fell off the map for a few years because of injury. And then fought all the way back from basically nowhere to not only get straight into the Australian Open, but into the third round.

We also like Ostapenko v Azarenka. It is, relatively speaking, almost old-school.

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Australian Open
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Category: Grand Slam
Surface: Outdoor Hard
Dates: Jan. 14 – 28, 2024
Prize money: $86.5 million AUD
Draws: S128 / D64

Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024
Final results

Upsets

Linda Noskova (CZE) def [1] Iga Swiatek (POL) 36 63 64
[18] Victoria Azarenka (BLR) def [11] Jelena Ostapenko (LAT) 61 75
[Q] Dayana Yastremska (UKR) def [27] Emma Navarro (USA) 62 26 61 

Seeds advancing

[12] Zheng Qinwen (CHN) def Wang Yafan (CHN) 64 26 76 [10-8]
[19] Elina Svitolina (UKR) def Viktorija Golubic (SUI) 62 63
[26] Jasmine Paolini (ITA) def Anna Blinkova (RUS) 76 (1) 64

Other results

Océane Dodin (FRA) def Clara Burel (FRA) 62 64
Anna Kalinskaya (RUS) def Sloane Stephens (USA) 67 (8) 61 64

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Stephanie Myles

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