Agencies
Melbourne
rom the headline-grabbing runs of Serena Williams and Roger Federer to the heartwarming return of Mona Barthel, 2017 is transpiring as the year of the comeback in the season’s opening Slam.
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who stunned world No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round, is among the other players who have overcome far more than mere opponents to progress to the fourth round.
Contesting her first Australian Open in 1998, the American-based Croatian waited 19 excruciating years to record back-to-back victories at Melbourne Park.
Now she has three of them and the latest “ a come-from-behind three-setter over Maria Sakkari “ highlights the persistence that has shaped her unlikely career.
Lucic-Baroni seemed certain for stardom as a Wimbledon semifinalist at age 17 in 1999, but with personal and financial issues derailing progress, she opted out of Grand Slams completely for six years from 2003.
A fourth-round run at the 2014 US Open, where Lucic-Baroni defeated then world No.2 Simona Halep, was a high point, but it would take until AO2017 before she thrived at this level again.
“My career has been so long and stop and go and all that stuff,” said Lucic-Baroni, after dispensing of a determined opponent in Sakkari to reach the final 16.
“But I just take it, every win, it really is a big deal for me. It is like winning a tournament. I celebrate it.”
While it’s Lucic-Baroni’s Grand Slam performances that attract headlines, it’s a journey that began in little-known Challenger events that created the opportunity to compete in them.
For the 34-year-old, the first step in returning to the elite level was gaining ranking points in such places as Planation, Lutz, Rancho Mirage and Jackson in the USA.
“Whoever thinks that this is glamorous and all this prizemoney and all that should come have a chat with me. It is not all it's cracked up to be,” said Lucic-Baroni, who contested her first Grand Slam in more than eight years at Wimbledon in 2010.
“I mean, it's not so easy to get to this point, for sure. (The) Challenger circuit is very difficult mentally. More than anything, you have to be super-determined and take it as a stepping stone, and just try to get away from there as soon as possible and go a step up.
“It's been a really difficult road for me. It's been difficult to come back, but I'm very proud that I'm here.”
Barthel, a former world No.23 who had to qualify for this Australian Open, also began the hard work of her resurgence far from the Grand Slam stage. Returning home to Germany after AO2016, the 26-year-old suffered the first symptoms of a mystery virus that would completely derail her season.
“Nobody knew what it was exactly,” Barthel said. “I just couldn’t do anything. Walking 100 metres was totally exhausting for me. It was a really tough time. Tennis wasn’t really a part of it, I was just trying to get back to live a normal life. I really didn’t know if I could return.”
Forcing herself back onto court in the latter stages of the year, Barthel recovered enough to compete in Melbourne, where that recovery has unquestionably been by boosted by her progression to the fourth round.
The same is undoubtedly true of Sorana Cirstea, who was widely regarded as the “next big thing” when the then 19-year-old made a quarterfinal run at the at the 2009 French Open.
Grand Slam heights failed to eventuate, and the Romanian’s career became complicated when a shoulder injury required surgery. Absent from AO2016, she at least participated in the next three Slams, but failed to win a round.
AO2017 is transpiring as a very different major for 26-yearold Cirstea; with her service motion overhauled, she’s into the fourth round with wins over No.10 seed Carla Suarez Navarro and the higher-ranked Alison Riske.
Having recovered from injury, those wins no doubt have greater meaning for Cirstea. And like Lucic-Baroni, she’s arguably competing with a certain freedom too.
“I missed quite a few years on tour. I missed a lot," the Croatian said after her win over Radwanska.
"I feel like this time around, I don't really have anything left to prove to anybody. I'm just enjoying myself, playing for myself."
But if Lucic-Baroni is competing for herself, she’s also inspiring others too “ as are Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena in their successful returns from long injury breaks.
We’ve long known the Australian Open as the Happy Slam; in 2017, it’s arguably the healing one, too.
