The continuing 2026 Australian Open is the beginning of a farewell tour for 2 tennis gamers – Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka. Whereas the previous has bowed out with a first-round, four-set loss to Dane Sweeny, the latter continues to be within the race to progress into the following levels, together with his second-round conflict in opposition to Arthur Gea nonetheless on on the time of writing.
10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, who will flip 39 in Could, mentioned that he had a few years left in him after securing a straight-sets win over Italy’s Francesco Maestrelli on Thursday. The 38-year-old mentioned that he was youthful than each these gamers and, because of this, had extra time on his palms.
“Monfils and Wawrinka each have left an important, nice legacy as gamers. However as folks as properly, each gamers are pleasant within the dressing room.”
“Monfils is one yr older than me, Wawrinka is 2 years older than me, so I believe I’ve one or two years extra atleast,” the Serb instructed ESPN’s Latin American X deal with on Thursday.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion had quashed all retirement discuss forward of the event, including that he was nonetheless residing his dream and had the requisite love and keenness for tennis.
“I’m nonetheless residing my dream to be trustworthy. It’s ardour and love for the sport. It’s the interplay with folks. It’s the vitality that you just really feel if you stroll out on the courtroom. That adrenaline rush, it’s nearly like a drug. I believe that quite a lot of the highest athletes from totally different sports activities can relate to that. I’ve been at the least listening to them talk about that. It’s so addictive, you recognize, the sensation of competing,”
“When that arrives and type of turns into ripe in my head, I’ll share it with you, after which we will all talk about on the farewell tour,” he had mentioned.
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Djokovic will tackle Botic van de Zandschulp within the third spherical on Saturday
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