Tommy Paul made two quarter-finals in Adelaide last year. Will the American advance even further this week?

The World No. 35 won his first match of the season Tuesday, when he defeated Australian lucky loser Christopher O’Connell 6-4, 7-5 to reach the second round of the Adelaide International 2.

“First match of the season is always a little tough and everyone has nerves going into the first match, so I was happy to go out and play the way that I did,” Paul said. “I didn’t really do too much wrong and I served well.”

Paul faced just one break point, which he saved, and won 81 per cent of his service points in the match.

“I was down in Floirida practising a bunch,” Paul said. “I was on court with Reilly [Opelka] a little bit, so hopefully he rubbed off on me a little bit and I can keep that going this week.”

The eighth seed will next face Briton Jack Draper, who advanced on Monday over Italian Lorenzo Sonego.

NextGen ATP semi-finalist Dominik Stricker has advanced to the second round of Australian Open qualifying for the second consecutive year after defeating German veteran Cedrik-Marcel Stebe 6-3, 6-4 at Melbourne Park Tuesday.

The 20-year-old, who fell to Australian veteran Matthew Ebden in the second round of AO qualifying last year, is yet to reach the final round of qualifying at a major. Stricker came up big in pressure moments, converting five of his break point chances and saving six of the eight break points on his own serve.

It was a mixed day for young Italian players. Francesco Passaro, 22, defeated 37-year-old Czech Lukas Rosol and 21-year-old Mattia Bellucci enjoyed a 6-3, 6-4 win over Chinese Taipei’s Wu Tung-Lin.

Rome’s Giulio Zeppieri, 21, also advanced Tuesday, defeating Santiago Rodriguez Taverna 6-4, 6-3.

But Italian Luca Nardi, who is expected to contend for a berth at this year’s Next Gen ATP Finals, had a disappointing debut in the Australian Open qualifying, falling 6-3, 6-1 to American Ernesto Escobedo.

Fellow Italian Flavio Cobolli, 20, also suffered a first-round exit in qualies, beaten 6-0, 6-4 by American Mitchell Krueger.

French veteran Benoit Paire drew on his experience to edge Brazil’s Matheus Pucinelli De Almeida 6-4, 6-7(5), 7-5.

Casper Ruud’s determination to never stop improving has helped him become the most successful male player in the history of Norwegian tennis.

Yet despite winning nine ATP Tour titles, reaching two Grand Slam finals and climbing as high as No. 2 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, the 23-year-old remains one of the most grounded personalities in the game.

As Netflix’s new documentary series Break Point takes a behind-the-scenes look at Ruud’s 2022 season, ATPTour.com lays out five things to know about the ice-cool Norwegian.

1) Like Father, Like Son
Both Ruud and his father Christian Ruud are considered trailblazers for Norwegian tennis. The former World No. 39 Christian was the highest-ranked Norwegian in Pepperstone ATP Rankings history until Casper stormed past that benchmark in 2020. Casper has gone on to reach a career-high ranking of No. 2 and in 2022 reached the final at both Roland Garros and the US Open. He happily attributes some of that success to Christian, who is his long-time coach.

“We looked at some [other coaches], but I said that, ‘I’m more comfortable with you being around’,” Casper told ATPTour.com last year. “I know that a coach will do so much for you and be very helpful, but when it’s the father as well, you feel like you are taken extra care of, because a father will care maybe those extra percentages because he’s your family.”

_{^{Christian Ruud watches his son Casper during practice at Roland Garros in 2021. Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images}}

2) He Is A Golf Fanatic
It wasn’t just tennis that Ruud took to at an early age. The Norwegian is also a lifelong golf lover and tries to sneak in a round whenever his busy schedule on Tour allows. The 23-year-old even has a separate Instagram account (@casper_golfer) dedicated to his passion for the sport.

“I love the way that golf is so challenging, but it’s also possible for normal people to earn a good score,” wrote Ruud on ATPTour.com in 2020. “Anyone can make a birdie if they are a bit lucky and, in those moments, it feels so easy to play golf. At other times, it feels so hard. The highs and lows of the sport are extreme, even more than tennis, and the details are so small.”

3.) Shania Twain Is Impressed
Having witnessed Ruud’s title win in Gstaad in 2021, country music legend Shania Twain returned to Switzerland last year to support the Norwegian in his bid for a second consecutive title in the beautiful Alpine town. Once again, she enjoyed watching Ruud power his way to victory, later tweeting in support of her friend. “Spent my Sunday watching Casper Ruud win his second Swiss Open Gstaad,” Twain wrote. “Congratulations my friend, what a result!”

Ruud, who first met the Canadian singer through mutual friends during his 2021 run, was thankful for Twain’s backing. “I really appreciated that she came back this year and supported me in the final,” he said after his 2022 victory. “It was nice to see her again.”

Spent my Sunday watching Casper Ruud win his second @SwissOpenGstaad! Congratulations my friend, what a result! 🌞🎾 pic.twitter.com/lQhHuGax4g

— Shania Twain 💎💎💎 (@ShaniaTwain) July 25, 2022

4) He Has Trained At The Academy Of His Childhood Idol, ATP Tour Legend Rafael Nadal
Ruud has often spoken about how he grew up idolising Rafael Nadal, and since September 2018 the Norwegian has had the chance to train frequently with the Spanish legend, at times making the Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar in Mallorca his home base.

“I always felt like I’ve played with good intensity in my game, and I need it to play well, but I’ve gotten that extra 10 or 20 per cent from being there,” Ruud, who was outside the Top 100 when he made the move to Spain, told ATPTour.com prior to the 2020 season. “That’s the small margin that can change whether you’re No. 10 [in the ATP Rankings] or No. 60… When I practise with Rafa, he gets to push me around and I’m usually exhausted after a couple of hours. They’re tough sessions, but they’re great.”

5) He Is One Of A Number Of Norwegians Making Their Mark On The World Stage.
Ruud is part of a wave of young Norwegians that have taken the sporting world by storm in recent years. Manchester City football star Erling Haaland, Top 10-ranked golfer Viktor Hovland and champion Olympic runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen also hail from a northern European nation usually more associated with success in winter sports. With a population of just five million, how does Ruud explain the sudden emergence of so many superstars?

“I guess we are young, hungry to do well, just focused on our sports,” Ruud said last year when asked about his, Haaland and Ingebrigtsen’s success. “It’s not something you can plan. It just happens. It’s coincidental sometimes.

“Maybe it’s the salmon we eat or the fresh water. I don’t know what’s going on… We hope we can keep it going, that more people can know about Norway as a country and also athletes from Norway that can do well in bigger sports.”

Morgan Riddle, the girlfriend of Netflix Break Point star Taylor Fritz, has taken the tennis world by storm since she began dating the American in 2020. Riddle has helped bring the sport to the masses through her social media channels, especially TikTok.

What people might not know is that she has no background in tennis at all.

“I didn’t know a thing. Literally not a thing. I knew who Federer was. I didn’t even know who Nadal was. That’s not a joke,” Riddle told ATPTour.com. “I literally didn’t know anything about it. But I know a lot now. I would consider myself a tennis expert at this point, I really would.”

Riddle is from Minnesota where she grew up with another sport: hockey.

“My whole family plays hockey. My sister played college hockey, my dad played college hockey,” Riddle said. “It was very different going to tennis matches from that. Hockey games you show up in boots and a sweatshirt and you drink beer. It’s a very different atmosphere than tennis is.”

The social media influencer was a lifestyle contributor before she began dating Fritz. Riddle would create content including gift guide roundups for outlets including NBC Boston and NBC Chicago Today. She has enjoyed helping Fritz push tennis further into the mainstream, something they hope Break Point will accomplish.

“I always thought it was pretty exciting. Since Taylor and I first started dating one of the things he’s always said to me is that pretty much his main goal besides being a top player obviously is to make tennis more popular in the U.S. Honestly anything that we can do to work towards that,” Riddle said. “I have kind of helped him a bit with that or been on board with his mission to do that, so I think the show will just enforce that. Hopefully, we’ll see.”

According to Riddle, people who grow up playing or watching tennis understand things like scoring and etiquette as second nature. For someone like her who a few years ago did not know anything about the sport, there was a learning curve.

“Like making noise or clapping between a first serve and second serve. If I’m going to my first-ever tennis match, how am I going to know that?” Riddle said. “I didn’t, so I had to pick up on those little etiquette things that are really impossible to know if you’ve never been to a tournament or you’ve never watched a tennis match in your life.

“Those were probably the first things that I picked up. Then learning the scoring system, 30-Love, 15, what does that mean? I had no idea. That itself took me like a month. I was really confused.”

There are even week-to-week aspects of life on Tour to get used to. Not every tournament is the same and the atmosphere could be different.

“Some tournaments are more casual, but that’s like night and day from what Wimbledon is,” Riddle said. “It’s a different experience from most popular American sports.”

Another thing Riddle has learned is how many highs and lows the sport has. Last season was the best of Fritz’s career, winning his first ATP Masters 1000 title at Indian Wells and qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals, but every week only one singles player and one doubles team lifts the trophy.

“[He gets over the tough moments] pretty quickly. You have to. You can’t really hang onto it. Obviously, if he loses a bad match to someone he wasn’t supposed to lose to, he’ll kind of mope around for the rest of the night,” Riddle said. “But you’ve got to get to practice the next morning, so you can’t really let it dwell on you for too long. I think players need to have a pretty good bounceback from disappointment or losses because otherwise they’re just going to be miserable all the time.”

What should fans know about Fritz off the court that they might learn about the American in Break Point?

“He likes playing golf, he is very confident. For how shy he is, he’s very, very confident in who he is, his game and his ability and potential,” Riddle said.

She added: “He’s quite shy, quite introverted, definitely a homebody.

“You can still see it sometimes, even in press and stuff. You can see how shy he is. I think you’ll be able to tell in the show he’s a little more introverted than most, but it’s endearing in a way, too.”

After experiencing several highs and lows in 2022, Argentine Juan Manuel Cerundolo got off to a fast start this year on home soil at the season-opening Tigre Challenger.

The 21-year-old recently battled leg and hip injuries which forced him to take time off. When the lefty was able to play tournaments consistently in the latter part of 2022, he made a sudden impact as he triumphed at the Buenos Aires and Coquimbo Challengers. Cerundolo, who has won 19 of his past 22 matches, picked up right where he finished the previous season.

Cerundolo, seeded first, rallied from a set down in Sunday’s final to defeat Bolivian Murkel Dellien 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 and claim the Challenger Aysa de Tigre-1.

Juan Manuel Cerundolo is crowned champion at the 2023 Tigre-1 Challenger. Credit: Asociación Argentina de Tenis

“I feel really good about this week,” Cerundolo said. “I think I had an amazing level, and tried to play offensive. The final was super tough coming from a set down, but I managed to turn it over. I’m really happy.”

At the Oeiras Indoor-1 Challenger in Portugal, Joris De Loore advanced through qualifying en route to collecting his maiden Challenger trophy. The Belgian took down Romanian Filip Cristian Jianu 6-3, 6-2 in the championship match.

De Loore is the oldest (29 years, 8 months) first-time winner since 2015, when Italian Luca Vanni won his maiden title at 31. The Bruges native has been plagued with injuries throughout his career, including missing the entire 2019 and 2020 seasons following multiple surgeries. The 29-year-old’s persistence paid off this week when he won the Challenger 50 event.

Joris De Loore earns his first Challenger title in Oeiras, Portugal. Credit: FPT/Sara Falcao

“Over the past seven years, every year I had a surgery,” De Loore said. “This [the title] will give me a boost, I really feel that I am physically good now and now it’s just about staying healthy. I think this year can be my year.”

In Canberra, Australia, Marton Fucsovics collected his second Challenger title in the past three months. The Hungarian defeated Swiss youngster Leandro Riedi 7-5, 6-4 in the final at the P2 Advisory Canberra International.

“It’s a great, great start of the year. Cannot wish for a better week,” Fucsovics said. “I was very focussed on each match and I felt very strong physically. I think it’ll help me in the future and especially at the Australian Open.”

Marton Fucsovics in action at the 2023 Canberra Challenger. Credit: Anastasia Kachalkova

Fucsovics, 30, has played some of his best tennis in Australia. The six-time Challenger champion has won 13 of his past 14 matches and will next look for another strong run at the season’s first Slam. The World No. 74 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings has twice reached the fourth round at the Australian Open (2018, 2020) before losing to Roger Federer on both occasions.

Saturday’s Canberra final marked the end of Riedi’s 16-match winning streak. The 20-year-old went on a late-season surge in 2022, when he collected the title at the Helsinki and Andria Challengers.

In Thailand, second seed Dennis Novak earned his first Challenger title since November 2019 (Bratislava). The Austrian defeated Tung-Lin Wu 6-4, 6-4 in the final to win the Bangkok Open-1.

“I played a really good tournament,” Novak said. “Lost only one set and felt really good, I would say it’s the perfect start to the season.”

The 29-year-old rises to 142 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings and keeps his eyes set on his goal for the season: “to get back into the Top 100.”

On the island of New Caledonia, Raul Brancaccio fended off a championship point before a four-hour rain delay to defeat Frenchman Laurent Lokoli 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 and win the Open SIFA Nouvelle-Caledonie.

After claiming his first Challenger title on home soil in July, the Italian had his back against the wall three times this week in Noumea. Brancaccio dropped the opening set in his final three matches of the week, including comeback wins against former Top-20 players Benoit Paire and Cristian Garin, who was seeded first at the Challenger 100 event.

An early-season equation has become clear: Thanasi Kokkinakis and Adelaide equals magic.

One year after lifting his first ATP Tour trophy in Adelaide, the Australian made more memories on his home court Monday evening when he battled past countryman Alexei Popyrin 6-0, 6-7(5), 7-5 after two hours and 45 minutes in the first round of the Adelaide International 2.

“It’s what you play for to be honest. I’ve had many great memories last year as well. Having that home energy and home crowd was crazy. I’m happy I gave them something to cheer about there,” Kokkinakis said. “It was almost going too smoothly, but then when I got the crowd into it and got them fired up, I know that’s what they came to see. It’s why you do all the work in all those tough moments. You remember those feelings and that’s something you can’t replicate other than [in] tennis.”

After falling behind by a break in the third set, it seemed Kokkinakis was on the brink of defeat. But the 26-year-old rallied for an emotional victory to the delight of the fans.

It will not get easier in the second round when Kokkinakis plays top seed Andrey Rublev, the No. 6 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

“It’s going to be tough. He hits the [heck] out of the ball. I practised with him two days ago and it’s not easy. We played well, it was a good set. But it’s tricky. He’s a hell of a player,” Kokkinakis said. “It’s not going to be easy, but I’m going to take my game and get after it. It’s going to be a tough match.”

In other action, Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina ousted reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champion Brandon Nakashima 6-2, 7-6(3). Another player who competed in Milan last year, Briton Jack Draper, advanced past Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 6-2. The lefty saved three of the four break points he faced to claim his first win of the year.

American Mackenzie McDonald let slip a two-set advantage against Daniel Evans three years ago at the Australian Open. McDonald earned a measure of revenge on Monday when he ousted the Briton 7-5, 7-5.

Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic also reached the second round with a 6-4, 7-5 triumph over Briton Kyle Edmund.

Matteo Arnaldi enjoyed a breakthrough 2022, capped by his appearance at the Next Gen ATP Finals. The 21-year-old Italian looks set to pick up where he left off last year.

Arnaldi eliminated Swiss United Cup team member Alexander Ritschard 6-3, 7-5 in the first round of Australian Open qualifying on Monday. He will next play Australian Alex Bolt, who ousted Argentine Renzo Olivo 6-1, 6-2.

#NextGenATP Dalibor Svrcina also moved into the second round. The Czech ousted Briton Paul Jubb 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 and will next take on Argentine Nicolas Kicker.

There were a slew of final-set tie-breaks contested at Melbourne Park. Nicolas Jarry outlasted Otto Virtanen 5-7, 7-4, 7-6 (10-6), Gianluca Mager battled past Filip Misolic 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(10-6), Adrian Andreev clawed past Francesco Maestrelli 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(10-5) and Frenchman Enzo Couacaud found a way past countryman Hugo Grenier 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(10-3).

Brandon Holt, who made a splash by reaching the second round of the US Open main draw as a qualifier, rallied past third seed Radu Albot 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. The American will face Portugal’s Gastao Elias in the next round.

In other action, top seed Alejandro Tabilo defeated Nikola Milojevic 6-0, 6-2 in 68 minutes and seventh seed Hugo Gaston won 6-1, 6-1 against Egor Gerasimov.