The Summer of Tennis in Australia is once again over. This weekend brought us two epic grand finals – with Caroline Wozniacki taking out Simona Halep in a three set cliff hanger, while Roger Federer beat Marin Cilic in a surprisingly competitive five-setter.
I love tennis. Every year I spend weeks up late at night watching matches, and always get sad when it’s over. This year I went to the Australian Open for the first time, and felt chills run down my spine as the first balls were hit. It was great fun.
What has always interested me about the tennis is how so fleeting it is in the Australian conscious. Tennis is a sport that grips us for one month and then leaves us just as quickly – departing to foreign shores with coverage only occurring if there’s a scandal, or if an Australian manages to win a Grand Slam. This is the very nature of the structure of the sport. Of course we are more obsessed with the sport while it is on our shores, and it is certainly harder to follow when players take off overseas to compete in the myriad of tournaments across the corners of the globe.
But watching the Australian Open this week I also think there is something a little more to this.