And another injury passes the first round test: Novak Djokovic, he of the sore elbow, has survived his encounter with Donald Young with all major body parts intact.
He whistled past the American 6-1 6-2 6-4 on Tuesday afternoon without so much as a wince or a grimace, and even if there is plenty of room for improvement – he had not played a competitive match since the middle of last year – he was looking good for a bloke who did not know if he would be ready to play at all just a few days ago.
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It clearly meant a lot to be back, as when the last point was done, Djokovic dropped to his knees and patted the court like an old friend.
“It’s just great to be back on a tennis court,” he said. “There’s no better place to start playing after six months of injuries than here in Australia. It’s been a long time for me without an official match.
“I’ve never faced this particular situation in my career. I think I was absent for one month maximum ever since I started playing professional tennis, so I never missed a Grand Slam. It was different. I don’t want to say it was bad; it was just different.
“An injury is something that no athlete wants to have, but at the end of the day I had time to reflect on my life, my game, spend time with the family. I had that, but I’m really glad to be back.”
In the six months since we last saw him, Djokovic has, apparently, put on weight.
Unlike the rest of us, he has done this deliberately, according to his coach, the great Andre Agassi. The question is where? To the untrained (and, it has to be said after the excesses of Christmas, hugely jealous) eye, the former champion is still as thin as a lath. Perhaps he has let his hair grow. Maybe he has not cut his toenails for a while. Possibly he is wearing thicker underpants or bigger shoes. It is hard to see where else he could pack away the extra poundage, because if he turns sideways, he all but disappears.
Anyway, with a little more ballast behind his groundstrokes and with his new, abbreviated service action, the rebuilt Djokovic was hoping that his ailing elbow would be fit for purpose.
The injury – as yet unspecified due to Djokovic’s insistence on patient confidentiality – is not fully healed, and the world No.14 admits that still has pain in the joint. But life is a lot better than it was when he pulled out of his quarterfinal with Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon last July.
As for Agassi, he was watching with intent. Hiding under a huge black hat (you had to do a double take to realise that it was him), the shaven-headed guru did not take his eyes off his charge. Agassi was expecting there to be some ring rust, he was prepared for few nerves – what he wanted to know was whether Djokovic could shake them off and eke out the win. If he could, the pair could establish a base camp and then plot a route to the summit of the tournament.
As it turned out, Djokovic and his gammy elbow did not have time to feel nervy or tense – Young was having an absolute nightmare of a day, and was struggling to prolong a rally, much less a set.
Back in the days when Djokovic was starting out on the tour, Young was a 16-year-old hopeful clutching a bunch of wildcards to the biggest tournaments on the calendar. Marketed as the great African-American hope, Young clearly had talent. They say he has “great hands”, a technical term which basically means that he can do things with a bat and ball that you and I could not even dream of – and those hands were put to the test (and usually thrashed) against the very best in the world from the moment he stepped foot on the tour.
Alas, without the experience of learning his trade on the lower rungs of the professional circuit, Young struggled for years with both with his game and his confidence as these regular pastings racked up. At the same time, he stubbornly refused to grow. Maybe if he had been a few inches taller, he might have developed a game that gave him a few more free points. As it is, he has spent most of his career in the middle tier of journeymen players.
Now aged 28, he has no titles to his name, and while his ranking reached the dizzy heights of No.38 in the world six years ago, he is now down to No.63. And against Djokovic in the first round, he looked as tight as a drum. A kitten facing a grizzly bear would have looked more at ease than Young at Margaret Court Arena.
There were moments when the American would forget where he was and who he was playing and he would go toe to toe with the former world No.1. And then a chance would present itself, one of those sit-up-and-hit-me, just-put-the-ball-anywhere sort of opportunities, the sort that everyone prays for and almost no one gets. And then Young would dump the ball in the net or Row Q of the stands. It was that sort of day. But after 111 minutes of this, Djokovic converted his sixth match point and put Young out of his misery.