Harrisburg native Brady leaves Melbourne with sense she belongs
Jennifer Brady’s Australian adventure began with 15 days of hard quarantine — stuck in her hotel room because she might have been exposed to COVID-19 while traveling to the country — and ended with her playing for the championship at Melbourne Park.
Brady, a 25-year-old Harrisburg native, won’t be leaving with the Australian Open title after losing to Naomi Osaka, 6-4, 6-3, in the women’s final. Brady does depart with a strong sense that she deserves a spot in her sport’s upper echelon.
“I mean, I made my first Grand Slam final. So maybe if I wasn’t in quarantine, I would have won. Maybe,” she said with a smile. “Yeah, I don’t think it really hampered me much. Who knows?”
Brady, who played college tennis at UCLA, was one of 72 players who needed to go into hard lockdown for at least two weeks after they were on a chartered flight with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus upon arrival in Australia.
Brady was the only singles player in that group who made it to Week 2 of the year’s first Grand Slam tournament and thought perhaps the break from routine did her some good, allowing her to rest physically and mentally.
In the biggest match of her career, Brady was even at 4-4 at the outset before some jittery mistakes led to a six-game run for Osaka that changed the complexion of things.
Still, Brady leaves with a self-belief she never used to have.
“I belong at this level. I think winning a Grand Slam is totally achievable. It’s within reach,” said Brady, who will rise from No. 24 to No. 13 in the WTA rankings.
“Playing out there, obviously, I was nervous. Didn’t go my way. But at the same time, coming off court, I was, like, ‘OK, that feels a little bit normal.’ ”
She has come so far, so fast, and points to two key factors that helped her — beginning to work with coach Michael Geserer in 2019, and playing against — and practicing with — elite players, which showed her that she could trade swings with the best the sport has to offer.
Consider her resume: When the Australian Open began two weeks ago, Brady’s career record in the tournament was 3-3, including first-round exits last year and in 2018, plus a loss in qualifying in 2019.
Her Grand Slam record was 15-14, and her overall tour-level mark as a pro was below .500, at 54-57.
She owned one career title, which came in Lexington, Ky., in August 2020, right after tennis resumed following a five-month hiatus caused by the pandemic.
“I told everyone that would listen that you’re going to be a problem — and I was right,” Osaka told Brady during Saturday’s trophy ceremony with a chuckle, after asking her whether she prefers to be called Jenny or Jennifer. “To see your growth over the past few months is really cool for me to see.”
Brady’s Grand Slam breakthrough came when she made it all the way to the semifinals of the U.S. Open in September.
Ran into Osaka there, too, pushing her to three sets before losing.
“I don’t think, you know, she’s God,” Brady said about Osaka, a four-time major champion at age 23. “I think maybe Serena [Williams] is. Maybe she’ll get there.