By Bill Simons
LAID BACK, SPORTY, GOOD-NATURED, TWANGY, QUIRKY, JOLLY, AND FUN: Australians.
KIND OF ODD: It’s back-to-school time here, and the NFL playoffs are on live during Monday morning.
MAC OZ: A Big Mac in Australia.
APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING: You spot a couple of black guys going to the tram, and think, “Wow, maybe this place is more racially diverse then I give it credit for.” Whoops. The dudes are from Cleveland.
UNDERWATER CAMERAS, IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS, NETWORK COVERAGE: The Aussies take their Ironman competition very seriously.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MELBOURNE AND NEW YORK: You’ve spent almost a week in Melbourne before you finally briefly hear a faint siren in the distance. That happens a few times an hour in NYC.
BEST NEW PLAYER/COACH NICKNAME: “Fedberg” for Roger Federer and Stefan Edberg.
AFTER SUNDAY’S PLAY IN MELBOURNE, HERE’S OUR HALFTIME REPORT: The first week of a Slam is usually an exciting maze of wide-ranging stories: upsets, collapses, breakthroughs—you know the drill. But sometimes just one or two themes completely dominate. For instance, at last year’s wild Wimbledon, when there were many upsets, injuries, and whacky results, it seemed as if sheer zaniness dominated. Someone had spiked the Kool-Aid.
But at least it was all tennis-related. At the Aussie Open, the leading theme for week one had nothing to do with tennis. Before Sunday, if you were to create a top-ten list of most important themes, it would’ve been something like: 1. Incredible heat; 2. Over-the-top heat; 3. Inhumane temps … You get the point. The three most important words of the first week were “wet bulb temperature,” whatever that means. The craziest player: Aussie tough girl Casey Dellacqua, who was hoping for even hotter conditions.
Then an even crazier thing happened. The best women’s tennis player in the universe, Serena Williams, got bounced out of town. Here’s our list of the top dozen events from week one:
1. Shock of shocks, No. 14 Ana Ivanovic beats No. 1 Serena.
2. A four-day heat wave turns tourney into a reality show: Survivor Australia.
3. There was no papal intervention by the Argentinian Pope for Argentinian star Delpo—No. 5 Juan Martin del Potro suffers a surprise second-round loss to Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.
4. Sloane survivor—Sloane Stephens, 20, has some serious scares, but endures and is the only American singles player to reach the second week.
5. The post-Roddick season of our discontent continues: America’s top men’s prospect, John Isner, pulls out of his first-round match, and for the fifth Slam in a row, no American guy reaches the fourth round. In the last seven Slams, seven different American men have been the last American standing. This time, it’s Donald Young.
6. It was business as usual in the men’s draw, as the big four—Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, and Federer—marched into the second week without losing a set.
7. Can genies really have armies? Well, Eugenie Brouchard’s boisterous fans, the Genie Army, think so. Bouchard is the first Canadian in 22 years to reach the quarterfinal of a Slam. Do we have a star-is-born story emerging? And can a teen final reverse the aging process in majors?
8. Aussie Action—gutsy Lleyton Hewitt couldn’t quite pull off yet another come-from-behind upset, while not-so-gutsy Bernard Tomic seemed to pull a “no mas” and dropped out early from his prime-time match against Nadal. But Aussies got inspiring performances out of new mom Casey Dellacqua and their Special K’s: teens Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.
9. So what else is new—the middle holds. In other words, it’s the middle of a Grand Slam and mid-Europeans are dominating. All 12 players left in the men’s draw are Euros.
10. Let’s get ready to rumble—the top half of the men’s draw is loaded with Nadal, Murray, Federer, and Jo-Willie Tsonga.
11. Li Na and Maria Sharapova survive major scares and remain alive to join Vika Azarenka as the faves for the women’s title.
12. Time for Baby to come into his own? Sharapova’s main squeeze, the 22-year old Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, has long been called “Baby Federer.” Now, he has a decent chance to reach the semis for a meeting with Nadal, possibly signaling the long-delayed emergence of a new generation in men’s tennis.
HOLD ON AMERICA, MAYBE THE FUTURE OF MEN’S TENNIS AIN’T SO DREARY AFTER ALL: The diminutive US junior Stefan Kozlov won his first-round junior match.
TAKING THE CHALLENGE SYSTEM TOO FAR: A reporter asked Li Na, “Would you like there to be a challenge system in life in general? In other words, if your husband is late, you could challenge him. Or if your coach is giving you a hard time, you could challenge him. Would you like a challenge system in life as a whole?” Na said no, her team does a good job.
BEST BREW COMMENTARY OF THE AO: Jim Courier surveyed the late-night throng in Melbourne and said, “There are pockets of the crowd which are pretty rowdy. Well, it’s Friday night. They’re Heinkinized, I don’t blame them.”
