 Before the Australian Open started, I did some predictions on the second channel, Tennis Talk Plus, go check it out, link down below, and it was not my best start of the season. Of course, last year we did these predictions for Wimbledon, we did the French Open, US Open, so this is the first Australian Open edition, but let's see how we did. So I think Sinner's going to do better than Mehvedev at this Australian Open. So first one, the final was between those two guys and Sinner got the win in the end. Mehvedev did have a tricky draw. He played four or five setters all the way through, and then of course the final of those four was in the final, but Sinner played amazing, he beat everybody including Djokovic, and he gets the win, one for me. So on the men's side for the qualities, I'm going to go with Lloyd Harris, and I'm going to go with Voli Nets on the women's side. So they both lost in the first round, and that was probably the worst prediction. I mean, I should have picked Yastremska, why didn't I pick Yastremska? Why didn't I pick Yastremska? So for the best country, it's so hard not to pick one of the big countries, and I'm going to go with America, because I just think they've got so many contenders. So it wasn't far off, Russia ended up being the most successful country, and that's of course because Mehvedev's run to the final, also Rubelev making it deep in the tournament as well. So I only missed it out by a couple of wins here and there, players like Aguila sort of underperformed for me, you know, goth did her part, but yeah, it was really disappointing for some of the Americans who I thought would do better. When it comes to aces, I've got to go with the big hitters. Hercatch on the men's side, and Rabakina on the ladies. So Hercatch was actually leading it until the last match, and then Mehvedev overtook him with 89 aces. Hercatch had the 87. So if Hercatch had beaten Mehvedev in that epic five set up, he would have probably been there. And Zhang, of course, made the final, played very well, served very well. She hit the most aces. Rabakina went out in the second round, so it's very hard for her to hit aces in two matches. This was a tricky one. Shviyontek's draw sucks. Sabalenka's draws pretty good. So I'm going to go with Sabalenka, just because she's got a little less hurdles. And she did have less hurdles. Shviyontek lost in the third round, was lucky to get that far, and Sabalenka didn't lose and set the entire tournament. So that was sort of an easy one, I guess, because the draw was so good for Sabalenka and so bad for Shviyontek. So for unseeded, dangerous players or runs that are going to go maybe to the third, fourth round or beyond, I've got to go be there, Mehvedev. And I'm going to go with Draper on the men's side. I just feel like he's due for a breakout. So Osaka played Garcia in the first round, lost, had she won that, who knows. And Draper lost in the second round, which was a little bit disappointing. I could have seen him made the fourth round. He could have played it against Elcaraz in that fourth round. So a little disappointed on Draper, but Osaka, why didn't I pick your strength? Top 10 upsets. This is going to be an interesting one. I've got to go with Sidney Pass, and I've got to go with Vondrusava. So Sidney Pass' injury wasn't as bad as it seemed. But also he didn't have to play Baratini in the first round, which was probably a little bit of luckiness there as well. Vondrusava did lose in the first round to Yostramsko. Why? In straight sets, really, really badly. In fact, most of the men did survive the first week, maybe apart from Runa. But everybody else sort of survived. On the women's side, it was the opposite. Everybody lost, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. My dark horse predictions and they're a little bit of personal favorites for mine, I'm going to go with Zheng to have a good run at the Australian Open this year. And I'm going to go with Demetrov, the feel-good story of the last six months. So nailed it with Zheng, made the final. Of course, everybody in the top half of the draw fell off. So she kind of got a benefit of that. Not having to play Shfiontek, we're back in a bagoula. Demetrov a little unlucky. Lost the board just in the third round. Could have played Medvedev in that fourth round, and who knows what would have happened. He did beat Medvedev last time they played. So, yeah, Demetrov a little bit unlucky, but Zheng made the final. And that's the best dark horse prediction besides the winner. So the big ones, who? I'm going to go with Djokovic. I mean, he's won this tournament 10 times. Elkres didn't play last year. Now, this is actually a lot closer than I thought, because Elkres did lose one round before Djokovic. Of course, Djokovic lost in the semis to Sinner. Elkres lost to Zverev in the quarters. So it was actually a lot closer than I expected. I thought Djokovic would make the final at least, but I didn't think Elkres would do that as well. I didn't think he'd lose that badly to Zverev, but yeah, just got this one in the end. So my hot take for this tournament. I reckon we're going to have a lot of unexpected upsets. There are some crazy first rounds. So I don't know how I pulled this one out, because on the women's side, everybody fell over. In the top half of the draw, we had Rabakina losing second round. We had Pagola losing second round. Shfiantec lost third round. I mean, that day five of the open was crazy. On the men's side, like I said, we had Runa losing early in the first week, but on the women's side, there was just Carnage, Jabirv, Andrusova, I mean, so many top 10 players. Sacri as well. It was Carnage on the women's side in that top 10, so I'll take that. So my semi-finals for the tournament, this is always the worst one, because I just seem to get one out of four every time. On the top half of the draw for the ladies, I'm going to go with Shfiantec, Rabakina, and on the bottom half, I'm going to go with Sabalenka and Osaka. On the men's side, I've got to go with Djokovic taking on Sinner. Again, a really obvious pick, and I'm going to go with Elkres versus Dimitrov. So again, I get one out of four in the women's side. You know, Rabakina and Shfiantec lost early, so Osaka didn't even get through the first round, should have gone with Goff. I should have gone with Goff. On the men's side, though, it didn't do too bad. I picked one of the actual semi-finals with Djokovic versus Sinner. Elkres just lost before the semis, and of course, Dimitrov, I thought he would beat Mbedev to get to the semis. Of course, didn't play Mbedev because of Borja. So look, that was terrible. And for the champions of this tournament, if you watched my predictions video of last year, you already know the answer, and it's always the boring answer. I picked him every single tournament. Now, back to Djokovic. I think he's the winner in this round. I think the women's side, it's gonna be Rabakina. I reckon she gets one better this year. ZZZ... Look, Djokovic didn't do terrible. Rabakina though, that was a terrible pick, of course she lost in a very heartbreaking fashion. Very close match, but still, she didn't even get close. Why didn't I just pick Sabalenka? Why- Sabalenka was such an obvious choice. She had such an easy draw, she just had to play Goff. Oh man, I don't know why I didn't pick Sabalenka back to back. Djokovic lost to Sinner. You know, Sinner beat Medi. That could have gone either way in the final as well. So I'm not too bad. I'm mad at that one, but man You cannot be serious there it is that is the title and I feel like this is probably been my worst one yet Great. Oh, well, it's the first one of the year. So we're gonna keep going up and the French open I'll do better. Let me know down the comments below. How'd you do with your predictions for this week? I did much better than match predictions. Can we show that? We'll do this for the French over and again. I guess we'll see if I can get better