The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the 2023 tennis season, closed the curtain, leaving behind some brand-new and familiar stories.
Tennis is a sport that never stops. The tournament calendar, which ended at the end of 2022, continues from where it left off with 2023. But things are a little different when it comes to Grand Slam tournaments. The slam season, which started in January with the Australian Open; The French Open continues in the second half of May, Wimbledon at the end of June and the beginning of July, and the US Open in September. In particular, the first major of the year, the Australian Open, is positioned a bit far from its counterparts in terms of its position on the calendar. This causes the audience, who is yearning to watch Grand Slam tennis, to feel a different excitement. Two weeks ago, we went to the screen with these feelings. The Australian Open, known as the “Happy Slam,” also gave us what we wanted again. It’s time to recall what happened in the five items.
This Time Blues
About a year ago, we witnessed one of the strangest matches in tennis history. Rafael Nadal, who fell back 2-0 in the final match that lasted 5 hours and 24 minutes, and who almost broke the service in the third set, clinging to the fight; he was signing the most impossible victory of his struggling career. 2022 Wimbledon was a breaking point for the legend, who scored his 21st slam victory in Melbourne and then his 22nd in Paris. For Rafa, who struggled with injuries in the second half of the year and became a father for the first time in the fall, tennis was inevitably secondary. Although the former world number 1 started the Australian Open with a Jack Draper win, where he won only two of his last seven games, he threw the towel in front of Mackenzie McDonald in the second round. Of course, the hip injury that he experienced during the match and that would keep him away from the courts for a while also played a role.
Time Machine
While the 2019 Australian Open was in progress, we had a fear that Andy Murray, who had been struggling with injuries for a while, was now coming to the end of his career. Because the British racket stated in a press conference that it might be his last Australian Open for the last time. The hip injury he had suffered since 2017 was serious. So much so that he could even tear Murray out of tennis, whose tennis largely depends on his mobility on the court. The three-time slam champion refused this seemingly inevitable situation and found a way to return to the courts after his surgeries. The most iconic moments of his return journey were in Melbourne, where he lost five times in the final. Murray, who won the matches of Matteo Berrettini, which was close to five hours, and Thanasi Kokkinakis, which took over five hours; he told the world in his own language that there is no such thing as impossible. Maybe Roberto Bautista was going to say goodbye in front of Agut, but he was in the hearts again.
