<
        >

          ICYMI at Australian Open: Stand up and rejoice because Caroline Wozniacki is a Grand Slam champ

          • Niall Seewang
          • Jake Michaels
            Close
            Jake Michaels
            Senior Writer
              Jake Michaels is a Melbourne-based sports writer. He has been with ESPN since 2013, covering everything from AFL to Formula One, basketball to boxing, and tennis, both in Australia and around the world.
            Follow on X
          Jan 27, 2018, 08:09 AM

          MELBOURNE, Australia -- Caroline Wozniacki is a Grand Slam champion. We repeat, Caroline Wozniacki is a Grand Slam champion.

          For more than a decade, Wozniacki -- who on Monday will be the new world No. 1 -- was forced to wait in the hope that one day she'd clinch a major title. After 2 hours, 49 minutes of high-intensity, back-and-forth tennis, she finally has one.

          Wozniacki's 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-4 Australian Open final triumph over Simona Halep left everyone at Rod Laver Arena breathless, and it had nothing to do with the sweltering conditions that forced the players to take a 10-minute break heading into the final set.

          More than seven years after appearing in her first Grand Slam final, Wozniacki slumped to the ground when Halep drilled a ball into the net, giving the Dane her coveted major silverware.

          How about a few nuggets?

          • Wozniacki is the first Danish player to win a Grand Slam title.

          • The match was the third-longest Australian Open women's final (by games) in Open era history and the longest since 1981.

          • Wozniacki is just the second woman in the Open era to win a Grand Slam title after saving match points in the first two rounds of the tournament.

          • Wozniacki regains the No. 1 ranking, exactly six years to the day since she last held it.

          Pretty good stuff, no?

          Speaking to the media after the win, Wozniacki said she was relieved.

          "Regardless [of winning or losing the final], I think I've had an incredible career," she said. "The end of the day, I think a lot of people would like to be in my position.

          "Honestly, nobody knows how much work, dedication you put into it. All I could tell myself was, 'You know what, you've given it everything you have.' If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Obviously, adding a Grand Slam to my CV is what caps it off, and really, I think, shows my whole career as a whole."

          Oh, and her win garnered just a few responses from social media:

          Despite losing her third Grand Slam final, Halep -- who revealed she struggled with tendon issues in both feet during the final -- remained upbeat.

          "I can still smile," she said. "It's fine. I cried, but now I'm smiling. Is just a tennis match in the end. But, yeah, I'm really sad I couldn't win it.

          "[Wozniacki] was better. She was fresher. She had more energy in the end."

          If anyone had any doubt about the severity of Hyeon Chung's blisters that forced him to retire in the second set of his semifinal against Roger Federer, check out this Instagram post. Warning to those with weak stomachs, though:

          . Tonight, I tried very hard to bring my utmost energy to the tennis court as usual. However, I had to make a tough decision given that I cannot compete 100% against Roger, in front of many tennis fans. Please understand. I wish all the best luck for @rogerfederer in the finals. ์˜ค๋Š˜ ์ €๋… ์ œ๊ฐ€ ํ•  ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ๋Š” ์ตœ์„ ์„ ๋‹คํ–ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๊ฒฝ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ํฌ๊ธฐํ•˜๊ธฐ ์ „ ๋งŽ์€ ์ƒ๊ฐ์„ ํ–ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋งŽ์€ ํŒฌ๋ถ„๋“ค ์•ž์—์„œ,ํ›Œ๋ฅญํ•œ ์„ ์ˆ˜ ์•ž์—์„œ ๋‚ด๊ฐ€ 100%์„ ๋ณด์—ฌ์ฃผ์ง€ ๋ชป ํ•˜๋Š”๊ฑด ์„ ์ˆ˜๋กœ์„œ ์˜ˆ์˜๊ฐ€ ์•„๋‹Œ๊ฑฐ ๊ฐ™์•„์„œ ํž˜๋“  ๊ฒฐ์ •์„ ๋‚ด๋ ธ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋ฉฐ์น  ๋’ค์— ์žˆ์„ ๊ฒฐ์Šน์ „์— ๋กœ์ € ํŽ˜๋”๋Ÿฌ ์„ ์ˆ˜์—๊ฒŒ ํ–‰์šด์ด ์žˆ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ!

          A post shared by Hyeon Chung (@hyeon519) on

          Chung pulled out late in the second set, handing the 19-time Grand Slam champion an easy ride to the final, where he will meet Marin Cilic on Sunday.

          What a moment for Dylan Alcott, who won a fourth straight Australian Open title on Saturday, taking out top-seeded American David Wagner in the quad wheelchair singles final.

          Playing in front of his home crowd at Rod Laver Arena, Alcott won 7-6 (7-1) 6-1 in 90 minutes, and while he's taken out the championship at Melbourne Park every year since 2015, he said Saturday's win was extra special.

          His semifinal against rival and friend Heath Davidson was played on Friday night on Melbourne Park's center court and broadcast live to hundreds of thousands on the Seven Network.

          Alcott said it was a breakthrough moment for disability sport.

          "I remember when I was a little kid, I used to ask my parents and brother why I never saw anyone like me on TV," the five-time Paralympic gold medalist said.

          "Kids today won't have to ask that. That means the absolute world to me."