The walking wounded of the last two Grand Slams are limping back into the circuit at the 2018 Australian Open. Cannot say much about the others, but I am watching Novak Djokovic right now, and he seems in pretty good shape.

He will feel the elbow when he is in the heat of battle, but he is fit, rested and raring to go. The only way to find out what is needed to achieve peak fitness is by getting back on the circuit. Djokovic has a tough first round versus Donald Young and if he gets past that, he will face an even tougher opponent in Giles Monfils.

Djokovic has a new coach in Radek Stepanek, his mate for many years and also a frequent hitting partner. It’s a great addition to his team and the former champion will benefit from having both Stepanek and Andre Agassi on his team.

The others who are coming back include former champion Stanislas Wawrinka, while Andy Murray has just had a surgery two days ago and continues to be out of action. Under such circumstances, there is a lot of excitement about the prospects of Nick Kyrgios, the local favourite. He has been looking good over the past few months and had a good run-up to Melbourne by winning in Brisbane.

There has never been any doubt about Kyrgios’ talent, the question was always about motivation and temperament. Kyrgios seems to be ready now and this might be a big opportunity for him. The other youngsters, Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev are not too far off either, so there are quite a few youngsters out there to watch out for.

All eyes, however, are on the youngest of them all — Roger Federer! He is playing as well as he was a decade ago, and looking fresh and enthusiastic. It would be really unbelievable if he defends his title, but after last year, when he and Rafael Nadal shared the Grand Slam spoils, who is to stop us from believing in fairytales.

The women’s field is once again very open in the absence of Serena Williams. There are at least 10 women in the fray who are capable of winning the tournament if they get past the first week.

Garbine Muguruza, Simona Halep, Maria Sharapova, Angelique Kerber are a few of the ladies to watch out for. It is clear that we might not see dominance of the kind that Serena exercised over the women’s game for the last few years. This makes it a more exciting situation and the next fortnight will throw up a new winner unless Sharapova scripts a fairytale of her own.

— Gameplan