Sport

Tennis

Fed express: 'It comes at you so quickly'

Roger Federer chases down another ball en route to another Australian Open semi-final.

Roger Federer first tried to qualify for the Australian Open in 1999. He lost in the first round, in straight sets, to tour veteran Olivier Delaitre. Yes, Virginia, there wasn't a Santa Claus.

Back from the darkness, into the Open spotlight

Happy days for Croatia's Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.

Meeting the 16-year-old Mirjana Lucic in a Sydney hotel lounge during her first, spectacular, career ascent, the Croatian prodigy anointed by Steffi Graf as her most likely successor had a physique and demeanour well beyond her years. She was also grouped with Martina Hingis and the Williams sisters as the future of the women's game.

'What are you looking at?' A semi-final!

Stan Wawrinka and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Between first and second sets on Rod Laver arena on Tuesday, Stan Wawrinka and Jo wilfried Tsonga snarled at one another from their chairs like schoolboys. Their exchange was in French, but the strength and depth of it might be divined from Tsonga's opening gambit: "You looking at me?"

Hungry Dimitrov romps into quarter-finals

Grigor Dimitrov beats Denis Istomin in four sets to advance to the quarter-finals.

Grigor Dimitrov did not expect to crawl into bed until after 5am, after his third-round match at the Australian Open started two minutes before midnight on Sunday, finishing two hours later.

The family behind the Zverev brothers' double act

Mischa Zverev cools down ahead of his meeting with former world No.1 Roger Federer.

While not quite the men's tennis equivalent of the Williams family, the Zverevs boast the mature-aged Mischa (age 29, ranked 50), who eliminated top seed Andy Murray from the Australian Open and on Tuesday night plays the great Roger Federer, and wonderboy Sascha (aged 19, ranked 24) who pushed Rafael Nadal to five sets.

Federer, simply the best? Roger that

"Career milestone": Roger Federer celebrates his win over Kei Nishikori.

What defines a great sportsperson? Arguably, it can be narrowed down to three precepts: achievement, style and graciousness. Some possess some of these qualities, but in my experience, only in one man are they combined peerlessly and inimitably.