It would be hard to ever top last year’s Australian Open, which featured three American women in the semis and a final showdown between an 8-week pregnant Serena Williams, who ended up taking home her 23rd Grand Slam title, and big sis Venus, the oldest player in the women’s draw at 36.
There was a brief glimmer of hope that a still-nursing Serena, fortified by midnight waffles made by her husband and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, would be back in Melbourne come January 15. But after making her first court appearance at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi at the end of December and losing to Jelena Ostapenko in a third set tiebreak, she figured she would wait to compete at a Slam until she was ready to win it.
Other big names have been dropping like Dustin Brown’s trick tweener due to injuries, including Andy Murray, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Kei Nishikori. But although Kei’s wrist injury is keeping him out of the Australian for the second year in a row, lucky for us he’s decided to come to Dallas to compete at the RBC Tennis Championships, which starts January 29 at T Bar M. (Full disclosure: I serve as an at-large board member of the Dallas Tennis Association, whose children’s programs benefit from the silent auction held during the event.) The $125,000 prize money is a far cry from the possible $4 million winnings at the Australian, but if I run into Kei outside the T Bar M locker rooms, as I did Ryan Harrison and Taylor Fritz last year, I’ll offer to buy him dinner.
Well .@keinishikori is out of this year's @AustralianOpen. Good news is he will be playing in this year's RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas #ustaprociruit #rbctennischamps #Dallas pic.twitter.com/cTFJuPr5N7
— RBC Tennis Champs of Dallas (@TennisChampsDal) January 3, 2018
