Australian Open 1990 + AO summary (1969-79)

The tournament is associated with John McEnroe’s default – the first Grand Slam disqualification in the Open era. Boris Becker’s 18-match winning streak at majors was snapped by a rejuvenated Mats Wilander, for whom it was a “swan song” though. In some sense we can relate it also to Ivan Lendl; the Czechoslovak defended his title, but left the throne a few months later (after a 5-year hegemony). An American teenager, Pete Sampras, won the longest Australian Open match at the time, and proclaimed himself as a real deal. Read more…
I’ve also prepared an Australian Open summary given the years 1969-1979. I will make similar pages considering Wimbledon and US Open soon.
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First blood of the new season: Novak Djokovic defended his title in an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi, on December 29, 2012 beating Nicolas Almagro in the final. Rafael Nadal withdrew from the tournament as well as from Doha and Australian Open. He won’t play in January at all which means his sabbatical is going to be prolonged at least to seven months (resemblance to John McEnroe’s sabbatical in 1986).
All scorelines of five editions of the tournament