Pedro Martínez will face Novak Djokovic, the record-holder at this tournament. The gap in class and experience is obvious, and the best-of-five-sets format only increases his advantage, especially at his favourite event.
Pedro Martínez
Pedro Martínez started the season with a title at the Bengaluru Open, an ATP Challenger event, where he dropped only one set in five matches. However, this result should be viewed in the context of the level of opposition: before that tournament, he had a run of seven consecutive defeats on tour. At the Australian Open this will be the sixth main-draw appearance of his career, and his best result is the third round in 2021. Hard courts are not his preferred surface, and against top-level opponents it is difficult for him to maintain consistency on serve and from the baseline, especially over the distance of three or more sets.
Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic comes into the tournament without any official matches in 2026, but his most recent outing was highly indicative: he won the hard-court Hellenic Championship in Athens in November 2025. There he beat Alejandro Tabilo, Nuno Borges and Yannick Hanfmann in straight sets, and in the final he defeated Lorenzo Musetti in three sets. That title was the 101st of his career. The Australian Open is a special tournament for the Serbian: 10 titles, an outright record, and semi-final runs in each of the last two editions. Even at this late stage of his career he retains his key strengths — a reliable return, control of the tempo and the ability to close out matches quickly against lower-ranked opponents.
Pedro Martínez vs Novak Djokovic Prediction
The decisive factor here is not current match sharpness but structural superiority. Pedro Martínez may compete in individual games, but over the longer distance he will regularly come off second best in long rallies and on return. Novak Djokovic traditionally takes a pragmatic approach in the early rounds of the Australian Open, avoiding long matches and not allowing his opponents to put together runs of points. For the Spaniard, even reaching a double-digit total of games looks problematic.
