Novak Djokovic vs Alexei Popyrin Prediction: Who will be stronger?

In the Australian Open, Serbian Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 ranked player in the world, will face Australian Alexei Popyrin, currently No. 43 in the world rankings. The guys have crossed paths on Tour once before, in 2019 on the hard court of Tokyo and that meeting was won in two sets by the Balkan.

Before the Australian Open, Novak played three matches at the team tournament, where he was stronger than Zhang and Lehechka but weaker than De Minaur. The world number one started the AO-2024 with a match against Croatian Prizmic, the 187th-ranked player in the world, and it must be said that Djokovic did not play his best match, losing the second set to Dino on a tie-break. Overall, Novak had 11 aces with one double fault and won 66% of his points on his first serve and 62% on his second.

Alexei played two matches in Brisbane before Melbourne, where he was stronger than Australian O'Connell and weaker than Roman Safiullin in three sets. In the first round of the Australian Open, Popyrin beat his compatriot Polmans in three sets 6:3, 7:6, 6:2 in two hours and 28 minutes. During the game, Popyrin made 20 aces with three double faults and won 81% of points on the first serve and 63% on the second.

Djokovic did not start at the Australian Open in the best way; he had problems in his first-round match and, before that, lost to De Minaur at the team tournament. It is obvious that Popirin is not an opponent for Djokovic, but there are doubts that Novak will defeat the Australian. We expect that Alexei will be able to fight against the Serb, and we wouldn't be surprised if he manages to take one set. Popyrin has a good first serve, and if it doesn't let Alexey down, the match won't be as quick as the bookmakers think.