australian open
Spanish alternatives to Nadal are scarce in Australia due to the different misfortunes
Spanish tennis took a very hard stick with the loss of Carlos Alcaraz in Melbourne. The Murcian was going to enter a Grand Slam for the first time as number one and as US Open champion, but an injury to his right leg, in one of the last training sessions before moving to Australia, cut short his roadmap and forced him to to discard his participation in the first big one of the year. Alcaraz will reappear in the Buenos Aires tournament on February 11, to later play Rio de Janeiro and Acapulco. The drop in Australia means that he will almost certainly lose number one after 20 weeks.
Nor will Paula Badosa be in Australia. The Catalan suffered a broken right thigh that will keep her off the track for several weeks and she will not be able to defend the round of 16 that she won at Melbourne Park last year. The highest ranked Spaniard in the ranking has been left out of the Australian Open due to a last minute injury, since she was injured in the quarterfinal match in Adelaide against Beatriz Haddad Maia and therefore she could not play the first semifinals of the year.
Garbiñe Muguruza will be in Melbourne, although she is not among the favorites in Australian territory on her own merits. The Spaniard has fallen to 58th in the rankings and has won four matches on tour since July. She has started 2023 with two losses, especially painful the one that occurred against Bianca Andreescu after going 6-0 and 5-1 up. It’s hard to think of a Muguruza doing well on tracks where she played the final in 2020, but she also warns: “I’m good at changing quickly.”
The winner of two Grand Slams can never be ruled out in this type of tournament, but the truth is that her last quarters date from that 2020 Australian Open. Since then she has only achieved two round of 16s. She will begin her run in the tournament against Belgian Elise Mertens, whom she dominates 2-0 head-to-head.
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