australian-open Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Naomi Osaka Found Herself In Danger, Turned Into A Robot, And Held It Down
It could have unraveled so quickly for Naomi Osaka. Up a set and 5-3, having whittled Petra Kvitova’s service game down to 0-40, Osaka had three straight opportunities to claim her first Australian Open. None of them got her there. First Kvitova tore the court open with her fiercest groundstrokes, l...
It's Happening Again
Rafael Nadal had booked his room in the final, with two whole days to ready himself for it. He drained the blood out of Stefanos Tsitsipas, just as he did to the last two kids trying to prematurely usher in the future. All Novak Djokovic had to do was wrap up one last errand today, and he didn’t daw...
All Hail The Rafael Nadal Banana Shot
Rafael Nadal gored YouTuber Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 today. Their Australian Open semifinal match took just 1:46, but in that span the winner erected a monument to one of tennis’s historic shots: the Rafa banana forehand. Above is as pristine a specimen as has ever appeared in nature....
Naomi Osaka Floats On To Another Slam Final
My exact moment of religious conversion on Naomi Osaka came while watching her play Karolina Pliskova from a few feet away in Indian Wells. Pliskova was and still is a spindly winner machine, and she sent balls bounding into the corners with no desire to see or deal with them ever again. Osaka was d...
The Lost Generation Has Left The Australian Open And Still Looks Quite Lost
The dominance of the Big Four has stunted the winning potential of a promising crop of men’s tennis players who are good, but not that good. This group of twenty-something not-so-hopefuls has earned the shopworn label “Lost Generation.” ...
Serena Williams's Left Foot Cost Her A Spot In The Semifinal
Serena Williams appeared to have booked her spot in the Australian Open semifinal. After a listless first set, she’d locked in to take the second, then run up a 5-1 lead on Karolina Pliskova in the third. Up two breaks, with the match on her racket, she had plenty of breathing room. And then her lef...
Danielle Collins, The Underdoggiest Of Underdogs, Has Never Been Here Before
This time last year, Danielle Collins was playing in Newport Beach, California. She was ranked No. 162 in the world and at a Challenger event, one tier of tennis competition below the WTA tour. Before arriving in Melbourne this year, Collins had not won a single match in the main draw of a major, wi...
Here Are Some Things Stefanos Tsitsipas Said Right After The Biggest Moment Of His Career
Stefanos Tsitsipas is one of the world’s brightest tennis prospects. He has a whomping beauty of a one-hander to his credit, as well as a knack for stylish net finishes, a recent win over Roger Federer and, now, one of the loftiest accomplishments in his profession—a major semifinal. It is also wort...
Poor Pablo Carreño Busta Chucked His Bag And Raged Off The Court After A Thorny Call
Well, here’s the messiest moment of this Australian Open to date, tainting the end of a five-set epic. No. 23 seed Pablo Carreño Busta won two sets, then No. 8 seed Kei Nishikori won two sets, and then they played on to a fifth-set super-tiebreak, which goes to 10 points, win by two. Considering th...
Frances Tiafoe Breaks Down In Tears After Advancing To Australian Open Quarterfinals On His 21st Birthday<em></em>
After beating No. 20 seed Grigor Dimitrov 7-5, 7-6 (6), 6-7 (1), 7-5 on Sunday, College Park, Md. native Frances Tiafoe celebrated advancing to his first Grand Slam quarterfinal the same way he did just one round earlier: ripping his shirt off, slapping his biceps and chest, and using all the energy...
Frances Tiafoe Celebrates A Five-Setter Like LeBron
Frances Tiafoe has already earned his place among the greats—in terms of tennis celebrations, that is. This is right on par with the sleeveless Nadal’s chugga-chugga-chugga juggernaut move. Tiafoe took a five-setter to make the fourth round of a major for the first time in his young life, so by all ...
American Teen Amanda Anisimova Rattled A Favorite With A Crazy Winner
Aryna Sabalenka has resting tigress face, and she is apt to pounce on any tennis ball that hasn’t been fired at her at bullet pace. The 20-year-old plays to kill, announcing her intentions with loud, flat force. She was the only player to give Naomi Osaka a good fight at the U.S. Open, she already p...
No One Was Awake For The Australian Open's Electrifying Bird-Poop Match
By the time Johanna Konta and Garbiñe Muguruza finished up their second-round match, it was 3:12 a.m., Melbourne time. Play only began after midnight. It would have started earlier, if not for all the obstacles: the rain delays earlier in the day, the pileup of five-setters beforehand, the seagull p...
Australian Open Match Delayed Past Midnight Due To Bad Scheduling, Bird Poop
The Australian Open has been criticized in the past (even as recently as this week) for its haphazard scheduling, both for heat and for match congestion, and Thursday’s slate of games added another point of evidence to the growing list of reasons why the first Grand Slam of the year needs a bit of a...
Frances Tiafoe Mixed It Up And Got The Biggest Win Of His Career
A tennis player who is down a set and 0-3 against a huge-serving top-five seed at a Grand Slam is typically cooked. Frances Tiafoe is the most intriguing men’s American tennis prospect alive at the moment, but when staring down that deficit against South Africa’s Kevin Anderson he looked about as de...
Practically All The Australian Tennis Men Have Been Dragged Into Bernard Tomic's Beef
The tennis world down under has been roiled by beef. Former Australian great Lleyton Hewitt now captains his country’s Davis Cup team, but he isn’t very popular among his young charges, if you take the word of Bernard Tomic, the prickly 26-year-old who was long ago one of Australia’s brightest prosp...
Serena Williams Returns With A Humane Butchering At The Australian Open
Serena Williams played her first tour match since a messy U.S. Open championship loss to Naomi Osaka last September, and had very different results. Today in the first round at the Australian Open, she slaughtered world No. 73 Tatjana Maria 6-0, 6-2....
Andy Murray Might Be Done In Australia After Grinding Five-Set Loss
Andy Murray will not quit the majors without another characteristically nasty fight. His last French Open: five brutal sets before Stan Wawrinka put him to rest. His last Wimbledon: five more sets of agony with his hip all out of sorts. Today at the Australian Open—which, given his retirement announ...
Andy Murray Was A Real Person Walking Among Gods
When the words “tactician” or “technician” crop up, the way they do around Andy Murray, who just announced his forthcoming retirement due to chronic hip pain, there’s a whiff of euphemism in the air. Sure, this player is missing that certain oomph, but nevertheless! Even so! Alas! He persisted, and ...