Australia pin hopes on Kyrgios and Ashleigh for ‘happy slam’

FOR a tournament branded the “happy slam” by Roger Federer, the Australian Open has given little cheer to home players.

Forty years have passed since Chris O’Neil held the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup aloft as the l ast Australian women’s champion in 1978. Add another two years for Mark Edmondson’s 1976 title on the men’s side.

The ensuing decades have seen Australia’s assembly line of Grand Slam winners slow to a crawl but still produce a host of would-be contenders.

Twice Grand Slam champion Lleyton Hewitt was the last to tease, his run to the 2005 final whipping crowds into a frenzy before they were silenced by an inspired Marat Safin.

The country’s last Grand Slam champion Sam Stosur, has been a maddening under-achiever, never passing the fourth round in 15 attempts.

Men’s hope Nick Kyrgios now carries the burden of Australia’s expectations.

Boasting a temper the equal of his prodigious talent, Kyrgios reached the 2015 quarter-finals, a breakthrough hailed by some as a milestone on the path to greatness.

All would be forgiven if Kyrgios flirts with a place in the second week, in what might seem a formality for a player who has beaten Federer, and twice upset Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal.

His form is encouraging too, having won the Brisbane title last week to start his year with a bang.

Yet few players have set themselves up to fail quite like the complicated 22-year-old.

Kyrgios’s biggest obstacle may be physical rather than mental, the right hip that has troubled him for much of the past two seasons vulnerable in a two-week slam.

The goodwill Kyrgios lost now envelops the nation’s top women’s contender Ashleigh Barty.

A year Kyrgios’s junior, Ashleigh has dislodged Sam as Australia’s No 1 women’s player after a meteoric rise.

Since winning her maiden title in Malaysia in March, the former Wimbledon girls champion has humbled some of the tour’s biggest names and will be seeded in Melbourne.

“I love it. I love our fans. I love their passion. And I love playing for Australia,” said Ashleigh.

Australian fans would clamour for such enthusiasm from Kyrgios at Melbourne Park.

“The Australian public are crying out for a tennis hero,” Ashleigh’s junior coach Jim Joyce told Fairfax Media. Reuters