Eva Lys. | Photo: AP
Joao Fonseca. | Photo: AP
The pinnacle of sport as you know it. Grand Slam tennis – there’s nothing like it. There’s no room for error. Perfection is the norm. Anything below, and you will struggle to keep up. Show the slightest sign of crumbling — one bounce more than optimal before your serve, two extra sips of water to calm your nerves, three beads of sweat that don’t belong and stand out like a sore thumb — and you’ll be eaten alive.
Majors are the best test of your endurance – mental and physical. Three or five sets of gruelling, mind-numbing, and terrifying tennis that will have you craving for respite. That is why the favourites remain the favourites. What sets them apart from the rest, you ask? Winner’s mentality.
In a year when the usual suspects proved their mettle and soared to greater heights Down Under, a fair few unusual “unsuspects” took the world by storm with the upsets they caused at the Happy Slam.
Learning on the go
Four hours and 49 minutes. That’s how long it took for 19-year-old Learner Tien to achieve the greatest win of his career as he beat last year’s runner-up and the then World No. 5 Daniil Medvedev in a thrilling five-setter.
In his first Grand Slam tournament outside the US Open, Tien took on Camilo Ugo Carabeli in the first round of the main draw. He displayed great resilience and character to beat the Argentinian 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 and claim his maiden Major win. The reward? A marathon with a former World No. 1.
Tien was immediately thrown straight into the deep end as the rookie was to match up against the stone-cold Medvedev. If the tale of David and Goliath were ever to have a live-action adaptation, this would have been it.
Medvedev is a Goliath of tennis in every sense of the word. US Open winner, three-time Australian Open runner-up, 380 career singles victories, and more. Once you look past all that, his freakishly towering height, at 198cm, would make most players feel infinitesimally small and powerless on the court.
With two daring, defying left-handed forehands down the line to win the first two sets, reminiscent of a certain Spaniard’s touch, Tien was well poised to pull off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament. But class comes through, and rightly so.
So self-assuringly unflinching, Medvedev saved a match point in the third set and pulled it back to make it two sets apiece. The decider headed to a tie-break, with Tien serving for the tie. And as the ball let fly from his racquet and swerved inwards of the centre line, Medvedev’s return would go long, and he had done it.
The teen had scaled his highest peak yet. He would go on to become the youngest man to make it to the round-of-16 since Rafael Nadal when he beat Frenchman Corentin Moutet, before going down to Lorenzo Sonego.
B(Lys)tering through
It was a sombre feeling in German Eva Lys’ camp following her defeat to Destanee Aiava in the qualifiers, knowing that a win would have assured her a spot in the main draw. But, as all things in life, there is always a second chance.
Elation. Scratch that. There was no time to react as Lys found out she would be competing in the first round as a “lucky loser” following 13th seed Anna Kalinskaya’s withdrawal 10 minutes before her fixture.
With nothing to lose and at least AUD$132,000 assured in prize money, the young German took to the court with no warm-up, pep talk, or pre-match routine. Call it novice fortune.
It mattered not as Lys took the Kia Arena by storm as she beat Aussie wildcard Kimberly Birrell in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 to progress to the second round, where she got the better of Varvara Gracheva.
Unexpected but joyous, young Lys had to reschedule her flights home with each passing win. Now, in listless waters, she faced Romanian Jaqueline Cristian in the third round.
It seemed Lys had reached breaking point as she lost the first set 2-6. But Cristian’s sins were sufficient for Eva to redeem herself as a forehand that went long from the former restored parity.
On the break with two match-points, Lys let fly a cross-court forehand, and that was that. She had become the first lucky loser to reach the fourth round of women’s singles at the Australian Open in the Open Era. She had set up a meeting with five-time Slam winner Iga Swiatek, who ultimately ended her dream run.
The magic didn’t stop there as Lys discovered she had pocketed a tidy sum of AUD$420,000 for her exploits. “I never went that far in a tournament… that is a number I’ve never even heard in my life,” remarked the truly lucky loser.
Fiery freshman
On the back of his second Challenger title at the Canberra Tennis International, 18-year-old Joao Fonseca announced himself in style at this year’s Australian Open. The Brazilian teenager, along with fellow qualifiers Learner Tien and Martin Landaluce, made history as the trio’s qualification to the main draw marked the first time three teenagers had qualified for the main draw of a Major since 2015.
Having breezed through qualifying without dropping a set, Fonseca was given the daunting task of handling the relentless Andrey Rublev. The Russian had just missed out on a top-eight seeding in Melbourne following his shock first-round loss at the Hong Kong Open and surely had a point to prove.
Do you know the pros of being a rookie? There are no expectations. No pressure to perform from the outside. No noise. Nothing weighing you down.
And soar he did with his newfound wings. Fonseca outplayed Rublev at his own game: high-octane, aggressive, first-strike tennis. With five set-points in the tie-break, the Brazilian phenom returned a serve down the centreline as the crowd roared the teenager on.
He had won the first battle. Growing into the game with every point. Fonseca was oozing confidence by the second set. An ever-so-cheeky drop shot followed by a ferocious cross-court backhand winner, the tables had turned. Attacking every point with an endearing arrogance, he comfortably — if I may say so — took the set six games to three.
It was all about mental endurance now. Could the teenager of trembling touch hold his nerve to seal the victory and cause the tournament’s biggest upset? Matching the World No. 9 blow for blow, the third set went into a tie-break.
With five points apiece, an unforgiving backhand down the line saw Fonseca within touching distance. With his hand to his ear, the teenager was now teasing the crowd. Never had a rookie looked more at home. One forehand later, it was over. He triumphed against the odds.
With that, Fonseca had made history, becoming the first teen to beat a top-10 player in the first round of a Major since Mario Ancic at the 2002 Wimbledon Championships.
He would next play eventual quarterfinalist Lorenzo Sonego in the second round, where he would meet his end. But not before he pushed the Italian to the brink as the contest went down to the wire, with the match being decided in the fifth set.
Although Fonseca’s ascendancy will inevitably be shadowed by Jannik Sinner’s unrelenting title defence in the grand scheme of things at this edition of the Australian Open, his ferocity in sizing up against the top dogs is a telltale sign of the fortunes that await him.
Published – January 29, 2025 12:13 am IST
