Nobody loves the Australian Open. Not in this part of the world, anyway.
The only North Americans on the right schedule to watch the best part of it are overnight security guards and farm labourers. You can’t love a thing that would rob you of life’s purest pleasure – sleep.
So when you hear that Novak Djokovic has now won more Australians than any men’s player in history, your first reaction is ‘Whoop de doodle’. Good for him. Does he try to eat that hideous blue tarmac, too?
If the Australian has any purpose, it is to let the rest of us know what’s what for the coming year. It’s tennis’s amuse bouche. If it’s soggy and tasteless, you know the main courses will also be terrible.
On that basis, this year’s Australian was … meh. You may have high hopes for the year ahead. If so, you are also probably the sort of person who can watch Love, Actually on a loop. You enjoy the moist comfort of the familiar.
Sunday’s men’s final got pumped up as a potential classic. It was instead a Mike-Tyson-in-his-heyday sort of encounter – if you spent too much time preparing snacks beforehand, you risked missing it.
Djokovic won. ‘Won’ doesn’t quite capture it. Djokovic started slicing at Rafael Nadal in the first set, stuck him in the second and field dressed him in the third. It ended 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 – the first time in Nadal’s career he has lost a Slam final in three straight.
The Spaniard was so discombobulated that at one point he whiffed on an easy forehand. Missed it entirely. It was like watching your granddad fall off a bike. It was sad.
Djokovic made nine unforced errors in the match, fewer than I make between the kitchen and the front door as I try to stagger out of the house on a Monday morning. Facing the second- or third-best player in history, Djokovic got very close to tennis perfection.
Like most perfect things – sunsets, French cooking, faces – it left you bored. We tune in for competition, not a coronation.
The women’s final was more fun. Naomi Osaka took that one – although not easily – putting her on a two-for-two Slam streak. Two weeks ago, the Japanese-American was the future. Today, she’s the present.
People keep talking about the end of the Big Three era. It’s still going, but the roster has changed slightly. The new Big Three are Djokovic, Osaka and Nadal (who’d looked remarkable until he was pancaked by the Serb).
They’re the winners out of the past fortnight, and will be for the foreseeable you know what.
The losers? Everyone else.
John McEnroe lost when he said this year would see a “changing of the guard” in men’s tennis. Then the new guards came out and the old guards butt-ended them one-by-one in the face. Nadal alone killed the Australian dreams of Alex de Minaur, Francis Tiafoe and Stefanos Tsitsipas. Alex Zverev couldn’t even get past Milos Raonic.
Canada’s next big thing, Denis Shapovalov, was run over early by Djokovic. Shapovalov should probably forget about the ‘next big’ part and try being a thing again. Any sort of thing.
The kids? They’re not all right. Considering that Djokovic and Nadal – at 31 and 32, respectively – are not exactly ancient, they might never be all right. Men’s tennis is in danger of seeing its third successive generation lost to failure and lassitude.
Roger Federer lost, literally and metaphorically. In his dotage, the Australian had become his pet event – pumping up his lifetime numbers, boosting his ranking and getting his year started in the right frame of mind. It had gone so well recently that he’d begun taking the French Open off. This year, Federer tripped over Tsitsipas and fell on his head.
The Swiss says he’s thinking about playing the French this season. That’s probably got more to do with Uniqlo – who signed Federer to a US$300-million apparel deal last year – than capital-h History.
But if that goes wrong as well, this season is going to start feeling like the farewell tour meant to end at the 2020 Olympics has been pushed up a bit.
Federer’s gone through one lengthy period of mediocrity in his career. At the time, he seemed less bothered by losing than happy to have something to do with himself.
But having enjoyed one of the great, late-career resurgences ever, does Federer really want to fall back into the middle again? What would be the point to that?
(Uniqlo copywriters: “Because trying your hardest never goes out of style!”)
The same question could be asked of Serena Williams. She didn’t just lose at the Australian. She lost in the sort of way that knocks a player sideways for months. The best women’s competitor in history shouldn’t be giving up matches she’s leading 5-1 in the third.
Williams, who like Federer is 37, may not be that player any more. We’ll require the evidence of a full season.
Williams has a strong double incentive to keep slogging – she’s only one Slam away from tying Margaret Court’s record of 24; and the women’s game is so competitively bonkers, any top player can win at any time.
In all likelihood, the Williams/Federer retirement procession will go on for some time. I wouldn’t put it past them to co-ordinate their leave takings – Federer says his goodbyes at his personal tournament in London, SW19; Williams at hers in New York.
Broadly speaking, that makes tennis in 2019 about empires rising and rising again.
Djokovic and Nadal continue to rule. Federer shows up at court less and less. Williams makes way for Serena Williams 2.0.
Federer and Williams continue to dominate the news cycle – if not the highlight packages – for as long as they care to. Everyone else tries to elbow their way into the sunshine, and can’t manage it.
In other words, welcome to 2019, whose motto is “More of What You’d Expect. Maybe Too Much.”
Cathal Kelly