(Tennis news) The past two days have seen comebacks overstaying their visit to Australia and it appears unclear when their visas will get revoked. The semifinals at Sydney Tennis Classic and Adelaide International 2 showed the world how a sport inaugurates a season. Sydney had seen Barbora Krejcikova play one of the top matches in WTA tour history yesterday and now it was the turn of ATP to light the court up.

Aslan Karatsev reached the finals at Sydney by beating Daniel Evans in a 3 hour semifinal war. The Russian has grown fond of Australia as last year he had a major breakthrough and now it's recurring. The world number 20 took four consecutive games in the first set to make it 5-1 until Evans took two games in a row to extend the first set to 40 minutes. In the second set, both players were holding their serve as there was no breakthrough for an hour until the tie break paid a visit.

The crowd expected the match to end when Karatsev got his first match point at 6-5 but did expect a handful of forehand hammers from Evans who then went to save four more. Then Evans had his first chance to take the set at 9-8 but hit a forehand lob long and went on to lose four more chances until a backhand into the net by Karatsev gave hope to the Brit. After 3 hours and 6 minutes, Karatsev took the match in the deciding set to reach the final. Karatsev defeated Evans 6-3, 6-7(13-15), 6-3.

Andy Murray made his first final in three years with a win over Reilly Opelka. Opelka was too strong for Murray in the first set as the ace machine continued to hit powerful forehand winners and came into the net to get ahead in the tiebreak. The former world number one was the first one to break serve as he did it thrice in the second set and even managed to lob the 6 foot 11 inch player in the 8th game. 

After losing the second set, Opelka got back at Murray in the very first game of the deciding set when the world number 25 quickly managed to change his backhand into a forehand lob due to a net cord. Murray did not slow down as he went on to break serve four times and even saved a breakpoint to win their first meeting on tour. Murray defeated Opelka 6-7(8-6), 6-4, 6-4. Murray again will have a first time meeting when he plays Karatsev in the final.

At Adelaide, it was Thanasi Kokkinakis who reached the finals on tour for the first time in 5 years. Kokkinakis was up against Marin Cilic and started the match with robust groundstrokes to take the set. In the second set, Cilic overpowered the Australian by a long margin to level the match as both players played their best in the first two sets. In the third set, the 2014 US Open winner saved 3 breakpoints and Kokkinakis saved 2 as it went for a tie break.

It was the 25 year old who got a great start as he booked 4 match points at 6-2 but a few superhuman forehands by Cilic cancelled them all. The Croatian won the next 5 points to give himself matchpoint as the youngster started hitting unforced errors, Kokkinakis found clarity immediately and went on to save 3 match points. A double fault by the 33 year old gave the wildcard a fourth matchpoint and then finally a ticket to the final against Arthur Rinderknech. The match saw a combined effort of 72 winners and 192 points. Kokkinakis defeated Cilic 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(12-10).

Also read: Arthur Rinderknech makes his first ATP tour final at Adelaide