Over the past few weeks, all eyes were on sunny Melbourne, Australia as the 2021 Australian Open came to an end. Filled with fierce competition and exceptional tennis playing, this 14-day tournament came nothing short of remarkable. In the end, the winners of the men’s and women’s singles titles were Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka, respectively. Numerous members of the PDS school community closely followed the tournament, including Freshman Emmy Demorre who declared, “This is probably one of the highest quality [grand] slams in my opinion throughout the pandemic.”

 The men’s bracket mainly played out as expected, even though there were a few surprises along the way. Unranked players such as Aslan Karatsev and Mackenzie McDonald made it quite far in the draw, although both were eventually defeated by the two finalists: Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev. Nonetheless, it was refreshing to see new faces. Junior Albert Ming concluded that that slam was a “good varied tournament even though one of the big guys still won it.” Two of the more notable upsets earlier in the tournament were those of Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem; Demorre commented on the matches, saying that “Tsitsipas and Dimitrov were just playing incredibly.” The championship match between Djokovic and Medvedev was unfortunately very dull; as Sophomore Neha Khandkar observed, “Medvedev just seemed off and it wasn’t as if Djokovic played particularly well either, but I think it was the pressure that got to Medvedev.” 

The women’s singles bracket ended with the fan-favorite Naomi Osaka coming out victorious. Demorre noted that in particular, she enjoyed seeing Osaka playing at such a high caliber again: “I feel like after her back-to-back grand slam wins she sort of hit a plateau. This win was to emphasize and solidify her place at the top.” Khandkar shared similar thoughts on Osaka’s stellar performance: “[Osaka] handled Serena in the semifinals very well, mostly by capitalizing on all the opportunities she was given.” In the finals against Jen Brady, Khandkar pointed out, “I think Brady and her forehand love a good power game, but Osaka was able to match that power as well as consistently redirect the ball, which ultimately won the match.” It is safe to say that Osaka consistently delivered throughout this tournament, and found great success, to many people’s delight.