Amid last week’s Super Bowl hype, the presidential impeachment trial, the usual glut of semi-meaningful college basketball games and the worldwide mourning of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others killed in that horrific helicopter crash, it was certainly understandable to overlook the Australian Open tennis tournament.
Yes, it’s a major, and, yes, it had its own gut-wrenching back story this time around, thanks to the deadly wildfires that have killed dozens of Aussies and close to half a billion animals and destroyed millions of acres of land throughout the continent.
But perhaps because American men have become about as irrelevant at the highest levels of professional tennis as they’ve long been at the highest levels of pro soccer, tennis is rarely a top newsmaker here in the U.S. until Wimbledon rolls around in midsummer.
There’s also the not-so-little fact that many of the best matches at the Aussie Open are played at 3:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, which means only the most passionate of tennis fans, insomniacs or zombies are going to tune in.
Novak Djokovic makes a backhand return to Dominic Thiem in the Australian Open men’s singles final Sunday night in Melbourne. / AP photo by Andy Brownbill