Playing in the main draw of a grand slam for only the sixth time, and facing Novak Djokovic, it is safe to say Enzo Couacaud could have done without an extra challenge.
Couacaud, a 27-year-old qualifier with a world ranking of 191, made a promising enough start against the nine-time Australian Open champion. While his apparent determination to trade baseline blows hardly bore the hallmark of a winning strategy, his ability to hang in the rallies and stubbornly ward off break points soon had Djokovic chuntering agitatedly up at his box.
But when Couacaud rolled an ankle after 21 minutes, all bets were off. True, Djokovic went into the match harbouring misgivings about the hamstring injury that has stalked him since the latter stages of his title run in Adelaide. But surely he would have too much experience, too much game, for an opponent with scant grounding in the art of five-set combat?
So you would think. Couacaud, though, is a cool customer. He had shown as much when he took the weather delays that prefaced his opening round victory over Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien in his stride – “Whatever comes, I’m happy with it,” he said later – and he demonstrated it again against Djokovic, recovering from a first-set battering to level at a set apiece. It was an inspired showing by the Frenchman, whose efforts sparked a mixture of gleeful disbelief and unbridled jubilation in his box, and briefly Djokovic looked to be in real jeopardy.
So he was, but the threat owed less to Couacaud, who was always likely to be hard pushed to sustain such a high level, than to Djokovic’s heavily strapped left hamstring. The Serb’s discomfort became increasingly apparent as the second set wore on, most noticeably when he landed on his left leg or attempted to decelerate, and after much grimacing and hobbling he left the court for a medical timeout at 4-5. With the muscle retaped and, no doubt, some strong painkillers on board, Djokovic quickly recovered to see out the match with characteristic aplomb, prevailing 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-0. But the unusual frankness with which he spoke about the injury afterwards seems indicative of its gravity.
“I am worried,” said Djokovic, who admitted that he is not practising between matches. “I mean, I cannot say that I’m not. I have reason to be worried. But at the same time I have to accept the circumstances and try to adjust myself with my team. My physio and medical team have been doing everything possible so that I can be able to play every match.
“There’s not much more to talk about. There’s two choices: leave it or keep going. So I’m going to keep going. I’m going to try to play and compete with, of course, a great player, [Grigor] Dimitrov, in a couple of days’ time.”
We have been here before with Djokovic, of course. Two years ago he charted a course to his ninth title at Melbourne Park despite tearing an abdominal muscle during a third round victory over Taylor Fritz. Even so, this feels different. Djokovic doesn’t do displays of weakness, and has always tended to play his cards close to his chest when injured. His sudden willingness to show his hand speaks not of some Machiavellian attempt to lull his opponents into a false sense of security – as if that were possible – but of genuine concern.
“I know matches are only going to get tougher for me from here,” said Djokovic. “Two years ago I had kind of similar circumstances here in Australia with a different muscle, where I had a tear and I had to deal with that. Somehow I pushed through it and won the tournament.
“But it’s different now, obviously. I don’t know how my body’s going to react. I hope for the best. I hope for the positive outcome. I’ll take it day by day, match by match, and see how it goes.”
By the time Djokovic broke to lead 2-0 in the fourth, the most significant obstacle to his progress was not so much Couacaud as a courtside heckler who had tried to distract him throughout. The spectator’s interventions drew some withering looks from Djokovic’s father, Srdan, and eventually prompted the fourth seed to approach the chair and demand the removal of his tormentor. It was the first real test of the edict issued by Craig Tiley, the tournament director, who warned on the eve of the event that any spectator disrupting play would be ejected. The offender was duly removed.
“I can tolerate five, six times somebody telling me something, but there is a limit,” said Djokovic. “That limit was crossed, and I stepped in and I asked the chair umpire, is he going to do something about it or not? He did, and I thanked him.”
On a day of carnage in the lower half of the draw, Djokovic did well merely to survive. Casper Ruud, the Norwegian second seed and runner-up at Roland Garros and Flushing Meadows, suffered a shock defeat to Jenson Brooksby, the American world No 39. Brooksby, who has earned a reputation as a disruptor of the elite with victories over the likes of Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas, shrugged off the disappointment of missing three match points in the third set to seal a 6-3, 7-5, 6-7 (4-7), 6-2 victory.
“He plays really well – he plays flat, he defends great from both sides,” said Ruud, who would have unseated Carlos Alcaraz as world No 1 with a title run.
“It’s a tough matchup for me, because I never really get any higher balls, or balls where I feel like I can generate the heavy topspin shots that I like to play. The few times that I was able to, he counterattacked great from both sides, keeping the ball low and deep.”
Also out is Taylor Fritz, the eighth seed, who was projected to play Ruud in the quarter-finals. Fritz, who began the season in fine form as part of the US team that won the inaugural United Cup, was beaten 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-2), 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 6-2 by Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, a wild card ranked 113th. Popyrin now has two top-10 scalps this season, following his recent victory over Auger-Aliassime in Adelaide.
“I think I have the game to beat the guys at the top,” said Popyrin. “Done that twice already this year, beat two top-10 guys. For me it’s very important going into [his next match, against Ben Shelton of the US] knowing I have that confidence, knowing I have the game to beat them, which I truly believe that I do.”
With big names falling by the wayside, the bottom quarter is opening up nicely for five-time Andy Murray – always assuming the former world No 1 can recover from the longest match of his career, an epic 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, 7-5 victory over home favourite Thanasi Kokkinakis that spanned five hours and 45 minutes before finishing shortly after 4am.
“The match was obviously very up and down,” said Murray. “There was frustration in there. There was tension. There was excitement, all of that stuff.
“Then at the end, I mean, look, it’s obviously amazing to win the match, but I also want to go to bed now. It’s great, great. But I want to sleep.”