🐨 The Draw is Go! The Australian Open main draw is set and there's some doozies in the 1st round! (Like... Alex de Minaur vs. Matteo Berrettini?!? That's madness.)

☀️ Highly Qualified Candidates 32 qualifiers and 1 lucky loser (so far!) make their way into the Aussie Open main draw. From slam champs to teenage phenoms, this year's cohort is pretty dang cool.

🦘 Mboko's No Joke! The 19yo wunderkind takes out the defending champion to move on in Adelaide. The Canadian sends Madison Keys over to Melbourne a little early with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win.

🪃 Double Trouble! Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider made the WTA Finals in doubles last year. Now, they're facing off in singles in Adelaide!

💚💛 Love Wins! The couple who qualifies together, stays together. Or, that's my wish for Jason Kubler and Maddison Inglis, who got engaged during the off season. Both came through qualifying to make the main draw at their home Slam.

🦈 The Little Giant Sebastian Baez is undefeated so far this year. And, he's halfway to an upset over Ben Shelton in Auckland! (I'll explain later...)

You likin' these Aussie-themed emojis? 🏄

🎾 ASB Classic (ATP 250)

🐠 Baez On the Brink Okay, it's later. Anyway, the Argentine was leading top seeded Shelton, 6-4, 0-1, when the rains came in Auckland. They'll finish their match today. The winner plays Marcos Giron later in the day.

🌊 Rain Delay Chaos Though Giron made it through to the semis before the skies opened up, the other guys are a day behind. Jakub Mensik takes on Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and will play the winner of Fabian Marozsan vs qualifier Eliot Spizzirri.

🎾 Adelaide International (ATP 250)

🐊 Tomas Machac vs Tommy Paul It's their fourth meeting in 16 months, all of which went 3 sets. Machac owns the hardcourt H2H. (2-1) Paul took the most recent meeting, but that was on clay in Rome. Both have looked incredibly strong this week, but Paul has the Adelaide edge. (He's got a 3-1 record here.) Health is the wildcard. Machac has made a habit of unexpected mid-match retirements.

🦐 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina vs Ugo Humbert Can the perennial finalist finally get a title? Can the French lefty finally finish a match? ADF leads the H2H (3-1), but the last two wins came via Humbert retirements. If the Frenchman's body holds, it's elite serve (83.3% hold rate) versus elite return (27.2% break rate).

🎾 Adelaide International (WTA 500)

🦞 Mirra Andreeva vs Diana Shnaider Andreeva leads the H2H 1-0, getting the win in Brisbane 2024. The 18yo has been dominant here (7 games lost in 2 matches) while Shnaider has grinded through three-setters. The lefty angles are Shnaider's best chance to disrupt.

🌅 Victoria Mboko vs Kimberly Birrell Mboko won their only meeting at Montreal last year on her way to the title. The 8th seed is heavily favored to win her semifinal match... and beyond.

🎾 Hobart International (WTA 250)

🌴 Taylah Preston vs Iva Jovic (3) Preston just dropped top seed Emma Raducanu in the quarterfinals. Jovic is looking to go one step further than her runner-up finish in Auckland last week. I'd say Jovic is the clear pick, but I thought Emma would cruise past Preston. 🤷

🕷️ Elisabetta Cocciaretto (Q) vs Antonia Ruzic I kinda love that Antonia Ruzic has just quietly zipped up the rankings in the last 6 months. The Croatian has looked unbothered all week and has a 3-1 H2H against Cocciaretto who had to qualify to get into the main draw here.

✨Men's Top 8 Seeds - 1st Round

Carlos Alcaraz (1), Spain vs. Adam Walton (WC), Australia

Jannik Sinner (2), Italy vs. Hugo Gaston, France

Alexander Zverev (3), Germany vs. Gabriel Diallo, Canada

Novak Djokovic (4), Serbia vs. Pedro Martinez, Spain

Lorenzo Musetti (5), Italy vs. Raphael Collignon, Belgium

Alex de Minaur (6), Australia vs. Matteo Berrettini, Italy

Felix Auger-Aliassime (7), Canada vs. Nuno Borges, Portugal

Ben Shelton (8), USA vs. Ugo Humbert, France

✨Women's Top 8 Seeds - 1st Round

Aryna Sabalenka (1), Belarus vs. Tessah Rakotomanga Rajaonah (WC), France

Iga Swiatek (2), Poland vs. Yuan Yue (Q), China

Coco Gauff (3), USA vs. Kamilla Rakhimova, Uzbekistan

Amanda Anisimova (4), USA vs. Simona Waltert, Switzerland

Elena Rybakina (5), Kazakhstan vs. Kaja Juvan, Slovenia

Jessica Pegula (6), USA vs. Anastasia Zakharova, Russia

Jasmine Paolini (7), Italy vs. Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Q), Belarus

Mirra Andreeva (8), Russia vs. Donna Vekic, Croatia

⚡ Notes from Qualifying

🌟 No Sloane Down. Sloane Stephens caps off herqualifying run with a statement 6-1, 7-5 win over Lucia Bronzetti. The 2017 US Open champion faces former world #1 Karolina Pliskova in the 1st round!

🍻 Zheng Zeroes In Michael Zheng saves two match points to make his Australian Open main draw debut, rallying past Lukas Klein in a final-set tiebreaker, 12-10. The American draws Sebastian Korda in the opening round.

🦅 Czech, Please! Nikola Bartunkova delivered the most dominant performance of the final round of qualies, blasting past Whitney Osuigwe 6-1, 6-0 in 42 minutes. Bartunkova squares off against Daria Kasatkina in the main draw.

🐙 A New Spanish Star Rafael Jodar stops for a bagel bite mid-match, but still manages to clear Luca Van Assche, 6-3, 0-6, 6-1, to make his grand slam main draw debut.

OH! And, in the 1st round, the Spaniard plays none other than last week's One to Watch, 🐬 Rei Sakamoto, who won the junior title in Melbourne two years ago!