Melbourne Hub: Australians' Grand Slam Hopes Wilt in Melbourne Heat

Tennis |Australians’ Grand Slam Hopes Wilt in Melbourne Heat

MELBOURNE, Australia — The pause lasted for maybe five seconds but it felt more like five hours. It came at the beginning of Lleyton Hewitt’s news conference Tuesday, after his ouster from the first round of the Australian Open.

It came on a day where extreme heat meant sparse attendance; where one player fainted and another player vomited; where the home team, at least in men’s singles, wilted in front of the home crowd. That was the subtext when Hewitt met with reporters, who met him with silence. Awkward, in a word.

Hewitt left the room a few minutes later and stalked up an empty staircase toward the locker room. He shook his head as he climbed. For Australian players, and for Australia’s Grand Slam tournament, it was that kind of day, notable for all the wrong reasons.

Six Australian men’s singles players took the court on Tuesday. Two wild-card entries, Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis, advanced, but both were unlikely to last much longer, let alone through the first week.

Lleyton Hewitt came back from two sets down against Andreas Seppi only to lose in five. Mark Dadswell/European Pressphoto Agency

Hewitt roared back from two sets down only to lose in five after obtaining a match point. And Bernard Tomic, equal parts enigmatic talent and favorite local punching bag, cited a groin injury when he retired down one set against Rafael Nadal.

Feeling the heat, the tournament felt it necessary to issue a statement on the weather. It listed the high temperature at Melbourne Park as 42.2 degrees Celsius, or 108 degrees Fahrenheit, at 5:45 p.m. The statement accurately described conditions as “hot and uncomfortable” but noted low humidity and said that no player had required medical attention after the end of a match.

“The playing group coped extremely well,” Dr. Tim Wood, the tournament’s chief medical officer, said in the statement.

The last time an Australian man won this singles tournament was in 1976, when Mark Edmondson hoisted the trophy. Since then, men from the United States, Argentina, South Africa, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, Switzerland, Spain and Serbia have won. But no Aussies.

Monday gave the locals hope, a little, anyway. Samantha Stosur advanced, as did Matthew Ebden. Casey Dellacqua trumped Vera Zvonareva, a player once ranked second in the world.

Then Tuesday happened. In the loaded half of the men’s singles draw, all the big names moved on easily: Nadal, Andy Murray, Juan Martín del Potro, Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Hewitt fell behind Andreas Seppi of Italy, seeded 24th, but rallied with a crowd mostly under cover, since the roof to Rod Laver Arena was partly closed. In the fifth set, Hewitt even reached match point, leading 5-4. But Seppi boomed an ace. Hewitt never recovered after that. The tennis legend Martina Navratilova posted “what a warrior” about him on her Twitter page.

Hewitt took several questions about the conditions. He reported back that “it was obviously hot.”

Few expected Tomic to pull off the seismic upset, but even that bid ended prematurely. All week, the tabloids had their usual fun at Tomic’s expense. One ran a story about the odds for which nightclub Tomic would be spotted at.

There was much discussion over whether his father, John, banned from ATP World Tour events for one year after a confrontation with Tomic’s practice partner, would attempt to sneak onto the grounds. There was a column in the Herald Sun from the retired player Mark Philippoussis in which he wrote, “It’s time for Bernard to wake up.”

For his part, Tomic played down the controversy that swirled all around him. He is no stranger to that vortex. He said he wanted to win tournaments and Grand Slams. He said his time would come in the next few years.

It would not come on Tuesday.

Tomic suffered through the first set against Nadal, who later said he could see that Tomic’s groin was bothering him. After Nadal took the first set, 6-4, Tomic decided he risked far more serious injury if he continued. That this only provided his critics with more fodder was obvious when some of the crowd jeered at his match retirement.

“It’s sad,” Tomic later said. “It’s unfortunate. I don’t think they quite knew what was wrong with me.”

Nadal could sympathize, in part. He missed this tournament last season with a knee injury that cost him seven months. He still managed to secure 10 titles in 2013, including another French Open and his second United States Open. Should he win here, he would become only the third male player to win each Grand Slam at least twice, along with Roy Emerson and Rod Laver. Nadal would tie Pete Sampras for the second most Grand Slams on the men’s side, 14.

All that is a long way off. On a rough day for the locals, Nadal conducted his own news conference. Someone asked him about the trend of elite players hiring retired elite players. He smiled, and he joked, “I am thinking with McEnroe for me now.”

Soon after, Day 2 ended, with the Australians’ best hopes in men’s singles gone but the heat expected to return throughout the week.