Venus Williams and US Open champion Sloane Stephens led a string of seeds sent tumbling out of the Australian Open Monday in a calamitous day for American players. She just played above and beyond,” said 37-year-old Williams, seeded five. Also out of the opening Grand Slam of the year is American big-hitter CoCo Vandeweghe, the 10th seed and a semi-finalist last year. Third seed Grigor Dimitrov survived, breezing into the second round, as did 10th seeded Spaniard Pablo Carreno-Busta. Nadal, who faces the Dominican Republic’s Victor Estrella Burgos, lost an epic Australian Open final last year to Federer, who gets his campaign underway on Tuesday.

Source: Punch January 15, 2018 07:41 UTC