The world No.4 Jannik Sinner clinched the Australian Open 2024 men’s singles title in stunning fashion, overcoming third seed Daniil Medvedev 3-6 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-3 in three hours and 44 minutes on Sunday night.
The 22-year-old became the first Italian man to win the Australian Open since 1976, and he is also the youngest player to win at Melbourne Park since Novak Djokovic in 2008.
Aged 17 he won his first title on the Challenger Tour and nine months later he established himself as one of the sport’s brightest young stars by winning the NextGen Finals title.
Since then he has won 10 ATP titles, reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon and won his first major in Melbourne – but the world number four still says it’s hard for his success to sink in.
“You don’t even realise how fast things are going,” said Sinner.
“Sitting here with this trophy, watching it – for me, I still have to realise it has happened.”
In the women’s competition, Aryna Sabalenka defended her title as the Australian Open champion after taking down Qinwen Zheng 6-3, 6-2 on Saturday. She was dominant through the entire tournament, winning a perfect 14 of 14 sets.
“It’s been in my mind that I didn’t want to be that player who win it and then disappeared,” said Sabalenka, the second seed. “I just wanted to show that I’m able to be consistently there and I’m able to win another one. I really hope that more, more than two right now, but for me was really important. That’s why, no matter what the result, like, win or lose, we are always working hard, we always looking for things to improve in my game.”
The result marks the 14th tour-level title of Sabalenka’s career, ninth on outdoor hard courts and first since last May, when she defended her Madrid trophy.
Throughout a dominant two weeks of tennis, the second-seeded Sabalenka became the first player since Serena Williams in 2007 to secure the title without dropping serve. She has won 28 of her past 29 sets at Melbourne Park, including her 2023 title run.
Perseverance has paid off for Australia’s Matt Ebden and his Indian partner Rohan Bopanna at Australian Open 2024.
Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden beat Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori 7-6 (7-0) 7-5 in Saturday’s final.
“It’s been such a dream come true to win here in Australia in front of our home fans,” a proud Ebden beamed.
It took 61 attempts, with 19 different partners, but Rohan Bopanna finally won his first men’s doubles Grand Slam title to set yet more records.
The 43-year-old Indian, already set to become the oldest men’s doubles number one, became the oldest major men’s doubles winner at the Australian Open.
Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens padded their exceptional Grand Slam title records at the 2024 Australian Open on Sunday, winning the women’s doubles title with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko. It was Hseih’s seventh Grand Slam women’s doubles title and Mertens’ fourth, their second together.
Hseih and Mertens needed only 1 hour, 33 minutes on Rod Laver Arena on Sunday to pad their already impressive Grand Slam resumes. They took the first set in just over half and hour. The second set was much tighter as Mertens lost her serve in the opening game. She recovered to serve for the championship at 5-3 but was broken again.
Finally, Hseih and Mertens took the match when they broke Kichenok in the 12th game.
Coming into the 2024 season, Hsieh Su-wei had won six Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles but none in mixed doubles. At the first Grand Slam event of this year, though, Hsieh got her mixed doubles Grand Slam trophy at last.
Hsieh Su-wei and Jan Zielinski won a match tiebreaker to claim the Australian Open mixed doubles title on Friday, with an nail-biting 6-7(5) 6-4 (11-9) victory over American Desirae Krawczyk and Britain’s Neal Skupski.
“It was a really tough match but we made it,” Hsieh said. “Thank you so much for such a great match, it was really fun on court to play you guys.”
“We didn’t have anyone to play mixed doubles with. We found each other on the looking list and it’s worked out pretty well,” Zielinski added. “Maybe we can keep it going.”