With close friend Caroline Wozniacki competing for her maiden grand slam, seven-time Australian Open champion Serena Williams went to bed, “too nervous to watch”. This is not the first time Williams has publicly admitted to “turning the channel” on a tournament she has made her own, but this time the inference could not have been more different. The irony is that in this case Williams missed a classic; an epic all the more impressive given her sizeable absence.
After all, publicity for the 2018 women’s draw began with Craig Tiley doing his best to hype Williams’ possible return, at one point promising there was “no question” she would be back, despite the fact that Williams was reportedly bedridden for six weeks following an emergency C section. In their enthusiasm to hype Williams’s unlikely return, one wondered if Tennis Australia prescribed to the notion that no Williams was equivalent of no Australian Open – at least from a women’s perspective.
By Saturday night, any such questions were well and truly redundant. While Serena couldn’t watch, the rest of us were transfixed. Those who bought tickets or tuned in were treated to a stunning match of tennis full of brilliant rallies and breathtaking winners, neither combatant giving an inch. When it was finally over, Wozniacki visibly shook with all the tension, drama and emotion of a final for the ages. It was a fitting conclusion to a tournament in which the women’s draw arguably provided more excitement than the men’s – perhaps with the exception of the emergence of cult hero Hyeon Chung.
Wozniacki’s win is a remarkable tale in itself. In officially reclaiming the No1 ranking on 29 January, she will do so six years to the day since she last held the coveted position – the longest time a WTA player has taken to do so since computer records were introduced in 1975. The woman she takes the record from is none other than Williams herself, demonstrating just how long Wozniacki has managed to stay thereabouts at the top of the game, a feat all the more impressive given her ranking dropped as low as No74 in August 2016. Since then she has shown phenomenal determination to turn her fortunes around, winning more matches than any other player since 2017 (at 71 wins).
Coming into the Australian Open, Wozniacki was one of no fewer than six players competing for the No1 ranking, with all of Gabrine Muguruza, Elina Svitlona, Karolina Pliskova and Jelena Ostapenko also in the running to take the title from the now dethroned Simona Halep. Thus while an injury-free Nadal and timeless Roger Federer may arguably have the men’s draw stitched up (as they did in 2017), this is a sign of how open the women’s has become in Williams’ absence.
This has certainly been to the benefit of the game. In so opening up, several stars have been able to emerge. Although Halep, for example, may have been voted the WTA’s fan favourite in 2017, she surely won a new legion of admirers in 2018. Australia has had its fair share of adopted internationals (Kim Clijsters, who denied Wozniacki the 2009 US Open, remains perhaps the most loved) and on Saturday night, an unlikely suitor emerged when the Rod Laver Arena crowd at one point chanted “Si-mo-na, oi-oi-oi”.
Perhaps it’s the association with Australian Darren Cahill, but there’s also the fact of Halep’s emergence as a spiritual underdog, clad memorably for the duration of the tournament in the same plain red dress she chose online and had made by a seamstress in China. It is farcical to think that a world No1 could go unsponsored for the duration of a grand slam (surely only something that could happen in the women’s game), and that a corporation would chose to part ways with her only two months after achieving the feat.
After all, this is the woman who played the Open final with two busted ankles (both now requiring an MRI), heat exhaustion and cramp after more hours on the court than any other player. Not that, at the end of a heartbreaking defeat, she would use that as an excuse: “Caroline was better,” she said simply and graciously.
Halep was also a participant in several of the best matches of the women’s tournament: the final of course, but also a thrilling and courageous victory over another star of the women’s game in Angelique Kerber, and arguably the match of the tournament against the US’s Lauren Davis which eventually ended at 15-13 in the third. That game if any was an exhibition for the depth of talent in the women’s draw, with the 24-year-old stunning Halep and audiences alike, and proving she could yet be a rising champion.
And, like any game in a state of abundant health, there is plenty emerging talent to get excited about. Japan’s Naomi Osaka, who had the misfortune of ousting Australian Ashleigh Barty, plays in idol Serena Williams’ mould, with blazing groundstrokes that can wipe worthy opponents from the court. Tellingly, Barty, a star of the game in her own right, was at times made to seem meek in her wake.
On the local front, Destanee Aiava also offers plenty. Compared to Williams by Halep, Aiava had the runner-up on the canvas at 5-2, while she also had two set points in their eventual first set tiebreak, none of which she was able to convert. At just 17 she has already said she would benefit from a break from a game she aims to rise No1 in, and the respective journeys of Wozniacki and Halep show just how much mental fortitude it takes to make a grand slam final, let alone win one – a pressure compounded when competing for a country arguably in need of new hope.
In this, she could do worse than follow Wozniacki’s example. Asked after her maiden title what it felt like to have the hopes of a nation riding on her, the Dane said: “It has always been normal for me. I’m very proud to represent my country. I think they’re proud of my achievements.” That she should “think” they are proud is telling, because the attitude shift that granted Wozniacki her belated major was arguably a shift to pride in herself; regardless of outcome or external opinion.
“At the end of the day, I think getting older, [being] more experienced, really believing in your abilities, I think that’s definitely helped,” she said in response to what had helped her finally win a grand slam title.
That her efforts this time proved enough for a breakthrough win, she said, was the icing on the cake to cap off her CV. “Nobody knows how much work, dedication you put into it. All I could tell myself was, you know what, you’ve given it everything you can. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. If not, then at least you know you’ve given it everything you’ve got and you can be proud of any achievement.”
And so should women’s tennis be proud, for it has proved an overwhelming success at the 2018 Australian Open, with a new champion and challengers to be proud of.
