This time last year we had two players on the verge of breaking through, with Daniil Medvedev reaching the fourth round and Frances Tiafoe into the quarter-finals, their best Grand Slam tournament performances to date.
Twelve months on, it's all about the Russian perched at number four in the world after a stellar hardcourt season in particular, meanwhile the American remains anchored to the edge of the top 50 having failed to make similar strides.
The pair have clashed twice before on the tour, split one apiece. Tiafoe's win was on clay in 2015 and is almost irrelevant now, while Medvedev's success came amid his great run in Washington last August.
Coming in to Melbourne, the formlines reflect their rankings. Tiafoe lost his opening matches in both Doha (to Martin Fucsovics) and Auckland (to Mikael Ymer), matches he should be winning if he wants to be earning a seeding at a Slam.
Medvedev on the other hand hasn't let up. After the Davis Cup in November, he played and won an exhibition event in Saudi Arabia in December, followed by the ATP Cup a fortnight ago.
In the newest team event, he faced a swathe of strong opponents, beating Fabio Fognini, John Isner, Casper Ruud and Diego Schwartzman before losing to Novak Djokovic in a ridiculously high-standard match for early January. He is the real deal and has an amazing ability to play at a consistently high level.
This might be the most competitive match of the night on paper but until Tiafoe takes a big step forward, it's going to be one-way traffic.
Sky Bet have Medvedev to win and under 30.5 games at 11/10 but that game line is just a touch too low. I'd rather take the safety of 31.5 games as extra insurance.