The lesson out of the opening week of this Australian Open for locals, if it did indeed still require further ventilation, was that you shouldn’t make your plans according to Nick Kyrgios’ grand slam schedule. That being said, plenty of other Australians – primarily a previously-unknown batch of up-and-comers – gave reasons for optimism about the country’s tennis prospects.
If Daria Gavrilova’s hard-running, fast-talking fourth-round run meant Australia at least had one of its singles players reach the second week of the tournament, the biggest gains were seen in the first few days, when teenagers Alex De Minaur, Jaimee Fourlis and Destanee Aiava gave an exciting glimpse into the near-future.
Fourlis didn’t draw anywhere near the attention of the other two, but the 17-year-old’s crisp hitting made this and many other observers stop what they were doing and raise an eyebrow. She made short work of a mature opponent (USA’s Anna Tatishvili) in round one and the scoreline of her subsequent 6-2, 6-1 loss to Svetlana Kuznetsova gives a slightly misleading picture; Fourlis slammed 16 winners to the eighth seed’s 20, many of them simply breathtaking.
The greatest excitement focused on De Minaur, Sydney-born, raised in Spain and for the lead-up to the tournament the surrogate son of Lleyton and Bec Hewitt. The 17-year-old’s five-set win over Austrian Gerald Melzer left him hobbling with cramps, and sent the Melbourne crowd wild out on show court two. He wasn’t so fortunate against big-serving Sam Querry. Hopefully another growth spurt awaits for De Minaur because he’s currently 5-10 centimetres shorter than the greats, but he’s a centre court talent with a level-head. Hallelujah.
Aiava became the first player born in the 2000s to feature in a grand slam singles match, and was far from overawed in her round one loss to German veteran Mona Barthel. She’s another who’ll require time and patience, but already boasts the power and shot-making capacity to compete with top players. She won’t be Australia’s eighth-ranked woman for long.
Where to start with Kyrgios? He splintered Gastão Elias’ game into so many pieces in round one you forgot about the world No14’s injury concerns heading into this tournament, but his descent into chaos in a five-set loss against Italian veteran Andreas Seppi was so far down the other end of the Kyrgios continuum his post-match press conference turned into a public trial.
The admission from Kyrgios that he needs both a coach and a more serious approach to his preparation resulted in a hung jury, but with the way this men’s singles draw opened up with early departures of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, Kyrgios should be kicking himself.
Bernard Tomic was again equally frustrating, putting aside a poor preparation to breeze through his opening two matches against Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci and Dominican veteran Víctor Estrella Burgos before falling in straight sets to Great Britain’s Dan Evans – a player his father once deemed incapable of providing decent opposition on the practice courts.
Tomic might give the impression of being blasé about virtually every element of his tennis career (admitting you put on 5kg in a Christmas blow-out takes an almost admirable lack of self-awareness) but the obvious byproduct of his approach is talent wasted. He looks no closer to grand slam success than at any point in the last half-decade, and it’s now probably too late for anything to drastically change.
At the other end of the care-factor scale was hard-hitting Jordan Thompson, outmatched but not outclassed in a round two loss to eighth seed Dominic Thiem, who was a desperately tough draw. Therein the Austrian slackened just enough to drop a set. That determined effort and Thompson’s five-set epic in round one against wily João Souza – against whom he dropped the first two sets before charging back – showed his steel, but also a measure of class.
Quiet achieving doubles star Andrew Whittington also reached the second round in the singles draw, where he ran into Ivo Karlović and his giant first serve. Not so fortunate were James Duckworth, Sam Groth, Arina Rodionova, Omar Jasika, Alex Bolt, Blake Mott and Lizette Cabrera, who all still departed with a $50,000 cheque for first round losses, and not as ingloriously as Sam Stosur in her loss to Britain’s Heather Watson.
Australians should be far kinder to Stosur, the only local to win a grand slam in the last 15 years, a millionaire many times over and a humble, undemanding star. Again the overwhelming feeling watching her endure another first-round meltdown was sympathy. She cares, she tries, and she’s just as frustrated by these moments as the fans.
Ashleigh Barty, on the other hand, was the outright heart-warmer, returning from semi-retirement and near-obscurity in her run to the third round, where she lost a close three-setter against Barthel. Who knows where she’ll go from here, but at just 20 years of age and boasting plenty of natural talent, she should be going this deep if not further at a lot of grand slam events in the next five years.
Rounding things out was Australia’s unlikely champion John Peers, who combined brilliantly with Finn Henri Kontinen to win the men’s doubles crown – a welcome tonic for those who hung around after Serena Williams’ triumph on Saturday night. “It is an amazing feeling,” Peers said afterwards. “I was looking through some of the names on the trophy. To be alongside some of the guys and idols I looked up to in the past is something that hasn’t sunk in yet.”
Those wondering what is sparking the sudden appearance of exciting young tennis talent like De Minaur, Fourlis and Aiava would do well to look at a report by Simon Cambers for ESPN which appeared early in the tournament. In short, heavy investment in the installation of “Italian clay” courts is producing juniors with better-rounded, grand slam-ready games.
Chris O’Neill and Mark Edmundson now move further into the decades they’ve spent waiting to be joined as local champions of the Australian Open, but in a 2017 tournament that suggested a changing of the guard is close, plenty of new talent is arriving at an opportune moment.
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