Where does pandemic-era Australian Open leave the tennis landscape?
The longest grand slam tournament in tennis history is finally at an end. The Australian Open, which truly began more than five weeks ago when the first players strode on to their airplanes to Australia before their quarantine period, ended on Sunday with the familiar sight of Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic on top of the world.
On Monday Djokovic gave further details about what it took to win his 18th grand slam title. After previously confirming a tear in his right oblique abdominal muscle, he said his posttournament MRI indicated the tear grew from 17mm to 25mm.
Djokovic may have offered himself up for criticism numerous times over the past six months, but this is not one of them. He was cruising at two sets up in his third-round match against Taylor Fritz when he clearly slipped and immediately took a medical timeout before he escaped in a fifth set. The idea that he would deliberately complicate an easy match and then skip practice for an entire week for dramatic effect is nonsensical.
What Djokovic demonstrated on the court is a lesson learned from all of the great players of this time. You do not win 18 grand slam titles only in perfect conditions. The greats have all dramatically won through injuries, illness and personal problems. It is deeply impressive and he deserves credit for his success.
The two weeks provided further nuggets of interest for the season ahead. With all of his trickery and athleticism, Daniil Medvedev is a clear contender for years to come and he now stands just 115 points in the rankings from the world No 2 Rafael Nadal. For Nadal his nerve, and his conditioning because of a back injury, cost him as he lost against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarter-finals from two sets up. His level remains extremely high on hard courts, but the eternal question is whether he can stay healthy. Tsitsipas, meanwhile, continues his steady progress.
The semi-final run from the 27year-old Russian qualifier Aslan Karatsev further underlines the amount of depth in both tours – many players are simply yet to find the right environment to thrive. Conversely, it is clear that Nick Kyrgios can perform on the big stage regardless of circumstance. On this rollercoaster ride, 11 months after his last matches, he recovered from match point down against Ugo Humbert and then lost against the third seed Dominic Thiem after leading by two sets. He will not resurface for some time, but it will be hard to miss him when he does.
In the women’s game, Osaka has already established an all-time great hard-court grand slam resume but now her focus turns to increased consistency and the other surfaces. It will take time and those expecting her to tear through both Roland Garros and Wimbledon are likely to be disappointed. Her opponent in the semi-final, Serena Williams, ousted the top-eight seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Simona Halep. At 39 years old her level of play is still wonderful but in order to win again she will have to relearn how to rise for the biggest matches when it counts.
The Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek, exactly 20 years younger than Williams, spoke of her doubts before the tournament but she performed extremely well, losing in the fourth round against a resolute Simona Halep. Earlier
that day, Garbiñe Muguruza played a brilliant match against Osaka. Although unable to close it out, she is thriving with Conchita Martínez as her coach and she will be a nuisance this year. With the returns of Bianca Andreescu and Ashleigh Barty, it is clear that women’s tennis is flourishing and the hope is they will, too.
In the end the Tennis Australia chief executive, Craig Tiley, and his team impressively navigated an endless series of complications to ensure the safe production of the event. In an interview with AAP, Tiley detailed the personal impact, which ranged from sleep deprivation to the “significant” abuse he received from players during their virtual meetings each day. The event wiped out A$80m from their reserves.
What they produced was a gripping sporting event that played out in the final days to the warm, familiar sound of booming crowds. Tiley had suggested that not hosting the event this year could have eventually led to it moving to China or elsewhere in Asia, despite the fact that Asian events had already been cancelled, and on Sunday he said that the “global message” the tournament sent was valuable enough.
Neither reason convinced, particularly now that global message includes the boos from fans after the TA chair, Jayne Hrdlicka, simply mentioned vaccinations during her speech. It was all a blast, but we will not learn for some time whether it was enough.
Jofra Archer looks set to return for Wednesday’s day-night third Test against India in Ahmedabad as England ponder up to five changes to their XI and a potentially seam-heavy attack in order to cash in on the pink ball.
Joe Root and Chris Silverwood face the toughest selection of a series that stands at 1-1 with two to play. Reports from the new 110,000-capacity Motera Stadium are that India want another dry pitch that spins early, although England’s captain and head coach could yet be swayed by lively performance of the pink SG ball in the nets.
“Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson and Jofra Archer have been licking their lips, I can tell you,” said Ben Stokes in an interview with TalkSport. “In training yesterday, when the lights came on, the nets got really dangerous. The bowlers had to stop bowling in the nets because we were worried that some of the batters were going to get injured.
“The ball started jumping off a length and a few guys got hit. We had to take the bowlers out into the middle to finish their spells.”
Archer, who missed last week’s 317run defeat in Chennai due to an elbow niggle, is available after a cortisone injection and could replace his impressive stand-in, Olly Stone, while Anderson should be fresh again after the 38year-old was rested with this third Test in mind.
“Jofra brings something unique,” said Root. “He can do things others can’t and he is a very exciting prospect in that manner. If he is fully fit, able to operate at 100%, it would absolutely be great seeing him back out there playing.”
Root’s endorsement was couched by the need to balance England’s attack for the conditions, while the tail is another factor. This appears likely to be settled by a straight choice between the spin of Dom Bess or the seam of Chris Woakes at No 8, after Moeen Ali returned home for a pre-agreed break.
At the conclusion of the last Test, the England captain said Moeen had
“chosen to go home”. But he admitted on Monday it was wrong to describe it in different terms to the other multiformat players who have been afforded down time during a three-month tour.
Root said: “I made a complete mistake. That was my bad, I got that completely wrong. It wasn’t a true reflection of what had happened and it left it open to interpretation, which was unfair on Moeen and I was very quick to apologise to him. He shouldn’t have been put in that position, so that’s completely my fault.”
India’s only previous day-night Test at home in 2019 ended with all 20 Bangladesh wickets taken by seamers and if Woakes is selected it would be another one-off appearance like
Moeen’s. Woakes flies home after the day-nighter and is not expected to feature in next month’s ODIs.
No Bess would leave Jack Leach as the sole spinner and Root needing to bowl more himself, while Anderson’s return could yet come at the expense of Broad. If so, Broad would be hugely frustrated to miss the chance to bowl under lights after last week’s wicketless outing in unhelpful conditions.
From the outside it appears England’s record-breaking pairing will team up for the first time on the two tours only if the tail is lengthened or if Archer is given another week to recover and the management decide the extra 90mph pace offered by either Stone or the newly-returned Mark Wood is not required.
“The [pink] ball seems to be very different. It seems to stay harder for longer,” said Root. “I don’t know if it’s the conditions at this ground but it seems to seam around a little bit more and it does seem to swing conventionally for a little bit longer. Depending on the surface we get, that could play a bit more of a factor.”
Then there is the question of the best top three, with Zak Crawley fit again after recovering from a sprained wrist suffered at the start of the tour, and Jonny Bairstow back from his break having looked confident against the spinning ball at No 3 during the 2-0 win in Sri Lanka.
Dan Lawrence, who profited from that pair being absent during the first two Tests, is expected to make way, while a top score of 33 in his past eight innings – and two ducks this series – means the position of Rory Burns at opener is under scrutiny. Dropping both batsmen would probably mean five changes overall.
Root said: “It’s not ideal but these times are not ideal. If you look at the white-ball squad and what Eoin Morgan and Trevor Bayliss created over that four-year period [before the 2019 World Cup], it’s strength in depth. That’s something we’re trying to do with the Test team.”
Scheduled to start each day at 9am UK time, the third Test is likely to draw the biggest audience of the series for Channel 4. The five Twenty20s and three ODIs that follow will be shown on Sky Sports, however, after they announced on Monday a year-long exclusive deal for India’s home matches.
The Six Nations organisers will make a call on whether to postpone France’s match against Scotland on Wednesday after the number of Covid-19 cases in the French squad hit double figures on Monday.
France remain hopeful that Sunday’s match will go ahead despite six positive tests on Monday, including the captain, Charles Ollivon, taking the total number of players infected to 11 and plunging the fixture into serious doubt. The head coach, Fabien Galthié, and three members of his staff have also tested positive.
The Six Nations’ contingency plan would most likely be to move the fixture back a week to the championship’s second fallow weekend but that could cause problems over player release. Scotland would need to reach an agreement with the English Premiership clubs to ensure access to a number of players, including their captain, Stuart Hogg, as well as Racing 92 for the release of the , Finn Russell.
The Scottish Rugby Union said: “Our players, coaches and fans hope the game can go ahead as planned in the existing tournament schedule.
Any postponement will have an impact on the player release agreement with clubs, which could see more than 10 Scotland players unavailable for selection if the game is rearranged.
“We will be working closely with our Six Nations counterparts to press the case for this week’s game to go ahead, should it be medically safe to do so.”
France confirmed that Ollivon, Cyril Baille, Peato Mauvaka, Brice Dulin and Romain Taofifenua had tested positive and would be sent home. Gaetan Balot, Thierry Paiva, Cyril Cazeaux, Thomas
Ramos and Baptiste Pesenti were summoned as replacements but Pesenti was later reported to have also tested positive.
Over the weekend Arthur Vincent, Julien Marchand, Gabin Villière and Mohamed Haouas all tested positive, after Antoine Dupont had done so on Friday. In total, nine of the 23-man squad from France’s victory against Ireland have tested positive and, while squad depth is less of a problem for the Six Nations leaders, tournament organisers are now facing a difficult decision.
They will be eager to avoid postponing but were compelled to act after an outbreak in the Fiji camp during the Autumn Nations Cup and with the number of positive cases within the France squad swelling the fixture is increasingly in jeopardy.
The rest of the squad remains in isolation and will be tested every 24 hours in the hope that the fixture can take place in Paris. France also hope to return to full training on Wednesday.
The Six Nations said: “The testing oversight group will meet [on Wednesday] evening to review the situation. A decision on whether the France v Scotland fixture can go ahead will be made at that stage. Ensuring the health and safety of all players and staff is our No 1 priority. Should the decision be that the fixture cannot go ahead, the match will be rescheduled for the earliest possible date.”