These first few days of the Australian has been marked by Americans making noise. I may be wrong, but not only does it seem as though there’s more Americans in the draw, but also Americans seem to be pulling through in tough matches against top players – especially on the women’s side. In the first couple of days we’ve seen your usual suspect top Americans go through, such as the Williams sisters, Madison Keys, and Sloane Stephens on the women’s side.

However, we also saw former UVA standout Danielle Collins pull out a gutsy win against 13^th seed Julia Gorges. She’ll meet Caroline Garcia in the third round – a totally winnable match for Collins. Sofia Kenin is also rising and will meet Simona Halep in the second round. Kenin has a good chance here in my opinion. Halep struggled in her first match and looks vulnerable. One of these relative newcomers will pull through.

On the men’s side, while seeded Americans John Isner and Stevie Johnson went down, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe picked up the slack by notching two great wins against 30^th seed Gael Monfils and 5^th seed Kevin Anderson. Especially of note is Tiafoe’s win. This was the biggest win of his career and he looked like the more experienced player out there. He got down 15-40 while serving for the match, and for a moment, it looked that nerves would get the better of him. However, he stuck to his confident game, didn’t play any shaky points, and served it out. I gotta say, Tiafoe looked mighty, mighty good. I talked about him breaking out last year. But I guess he needed some time. One more thing about Tiafoe – he’s got the sweetest looking backhand in the men’s tour. Here’s a snapshot of that beauty!

This brings me to my next point, given that we’re talking about early rounds. I checked the prize money per round for this year and it’s just plain insane the amount of money being throw around in all rounds. By losing in the first round, you get $50,000 (AUS). All these players that have reached the third round will now get at least $165,000 (AUS) for reaching that round. That’s some mad cash. Compare that to your average ATP 250 series tournament where the winner takes between $60,000 and $100,000. Just comes to show that Grand Slams are where the money is at! Check out the breakdown. Also, note the exchange rate in the chart.