Your Aussie Open Recap

Serena Williams' win in Australia moved her into third place on the women's Grand Slam list, and second place in the Open Era.

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

Since you were probably more focused on a pretty big football game, and most of these matches aired at 3 in the morning, you might have missed one of 2015’s biggest tennis tournaments. Here’s what happened over the last two weeks in Australia.

The men’s and women’s tournaments started on very different paths. The Top-10 men’s seeds all reached the third round while, eight of the 32 women’s seeds lost on the first day of the tournament, including No. 5 Ana Ivanovic and No. 9 Angelique Kerber. Ivanovic had beaten Serena Williams in the fourth round of last year’s tournament, so her loss to Czech qualifier Lucie Hradecká was especially surprising.

The only top men’s seed who struggled early on was No. 3 Rafael Nadal. An illness kept Nadal from playing his best tennis against American qualifier Tim Smyczek, who played the best match of his career. Smyczek took a 2-sets-to-1 lead, and it wasn’t until 5-5 in the 5th set that Nadal found his top form and closed out the match 7-5.

He also got a little help from some exceptional sportsmanship by Smyczek. A fan called out during Nadal’s motion while he was serving for the match, causing Nadal’s serve to miss. When the umpire did nothing, Smyczek called for the point to be replayed. Nadal ultimately won the point, and after the match, he congratulated Smyczek for the way he acted at such a critical moment.

Your Aussie Open Primer

Reigning Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka will have to play the best tennis of his life (again) if he hopes to repeat.

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

The first Grand Slam of the 2015 tennis season gets under way on Monday morning in Melbourne. Due to a 16-hour time difference, coverage actually begins on Sunday at 7pm in the United States. ESPN2 airs most of the tournament’s primetime matches live at around 3am, so set your recordings in advance unless you want to become nocturnal for a couple of weeks.

You might be asking yourself why you should bother tuning in to see a sporting event that airs at such unusual times. Well, the Australian Open has been the most exciting tennis tournament in the world for the last ten years. Many called the 2012 men’s final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic the greatest tennis match of all time, and the epic 2009 semifinal between Nadal and Fernando Verdasco might have been even better. Just look at these ridiculous highlights.

The Australian Open has also been full of surprises recently, with last year as a prime example. Huge underdog Stan Wawrinka managed to beat Djokovic 9-7 in the fifth set and then go on to win the whole tournament.

Let’s take a look at what’s in store this time around.