Fun first week in Melbourne. Let’s check in on a pair of Americans who I was not remotely thinking about at the start of this tournament, but are now worth your consideration. Unintentionally, it’s also a celebration of New Jersey excellence.

Last May, at age 21, Amanda Anisimova quit tennis with no return date in mind. Having been marked for greatness as a teen, and having delivered greatness on several instances, she lucidly announced her burnout. “It’s become unbearable being at tennis tournaments. At this point my priority is my mental well-being and taking a break for some time. I’ve worked as hard as I could to push through it,” she wrote. R.I.P. to one of the smoothest backhands on the planet, it seemed.

If that’d been the end of her career, it would have been a brief but remarkable one. In 2019, she beat Simona Halep and Aryna Sabalenka en route to the Roland-Garros semifinals, becoming, at just 17 years old, the youngest woman to reach that stage of the tournament in over a decade. Later that same year, she lost her father, who had been her lifelong coach; that was followed by a period of grieving, and soon after, the pandemic, and then an overall loss of form. She rebooted in 2022, beating defending champ Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open, making the fourth round at Roland-Garros and the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, returning to the top 25. And then a few months into 2023 she called it off. She hung out at home, took college classes, and got really into painting.

I was surprised to see her name back in the draw this year. Now I am half-wondering if she will win the Australian Open. Not one of her three matches so far has lasted even 90 minutes, all of them straight-set victories. We are again treated to the uncanny smoothness to Anisimova’s game, the way she ambles around and hits balls that seem to ping right off her racquet, as if in a hurry to flee the strings and sail frictionlessly through the air. It’s light, clean, accurate tennis without any undue strain. And it is very, very hard to stop, as her opponents—No. 13 seed Liudmila Samsonova, Nadia Podoroska, and Paula Badosa—have discovered firsthand. Next up, in one of the most anticipated matches of the tournament: the No. 2 seed Sabalenka.

Raise your hand if you know that Tommy Paul is a defending Australian Open semifinalist. That memory somehow leaked out of my brain in the intervening year. I remember several of his successes from 2023, but not this one, and judging by how thoroughly the hype machine has locked in on Ben Shelton, I wonder if the No. 14 seed is really getting his due. (Pour one out for both Frances Tiafoe and Shelton, early exits this week.) Paul plays some very watchable tennis. Supreme athleticism and soft hands pair wonderfully, and as we learned last summer, they’re also a strong answer to Carlos Alcaraz. Those two men played three-setters in consecutive weeks, with Tommy winning in Toronto and Carlitos bouncing back in Cincinnati. I’d liked Paul’s game but it was only during those matches that I realized quite how much game he had, gawking as he matched Alcaraz’s movement and pace for long passages of play.

Paul talks a lot about how he behaves like a professional now—he’s now confirmed the widely known story that he showed up to his 2017 U.S. Open doubles match still drunk from the previous night and received a double-bagel for his troubles—his ranking has been steadily trending up over the last two years to reward those efforts. The 26-year-old is now chasing down Taylor Fritz, whose days as the top-ranked American man may be numbered. Paul reached the quarterfinals or better of 10 events in 2023 and proved that he is fit and versatile enough to win in a range of ways across all kinds of conditions, morphing into a patient grinder or a big shotmaker depending on the situation. A front-row seat to his two-sets-down comeback against Roman Safiullin at last year’s U.S. Open turned me into a believer.

So far this tournament has been fairly smooth going for Paul, who drew a tough second-round opponent—the big lefty Jack Draper—and avenged a straight-set loss to him from the previous week. If Paul succeeds in his third-round match against Miomir Kecmanovic, he could find himself matched up with Alcaraz in a best-of-five format for the first time. I am enjoying that little pseudo-rivalry and an upset would not be so outlandish.

—If you’re interested in more on Coco Gauff’s new kit, Tim Newcomb will fill you in here. (And if you’re at the Australian Open and want to get a bit loose, Tim can help with that too.) 

—Sumit Nagal had a big result in Melbourne, per Giri in Defector. 

—We’re a bit late to the ball (so to speak) on this one, but Gerald Marzorati’s piece on the return of Naomi Osaka, just when tennis needs her the most, is worth a read. 

—Speaking of Naomi, if you missed it in Melbourne this week, you can hear “coach” Craig Shapiro’s live interview with Osaka biographer Ben Rothenberg here, on the Craig Shapiro Tennis Podcast. 

—In May, Alexander Zverev will face trial over allegations he physically abused a former partner

—Rafael Nadal becomes the latest sporting ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and John McEnroe is not pleased. Furthermore, Jon Wertheim reports on a wider backlash Saudi Arabia’s courtship of pro tennis.

—The Media Center lost a giant this week. Farewell, Mike Dickson.