#danielle collins

1. carlos alcaraz (or rather buzzcutcaraz) debuted his new victorbarber haircut and was tomatoed for lack of a better word, causing his fans to crash out two weeks into the new season.

2. danielle collins made herself an enemy of australia (or at least of the crowd at her R2 match against hometown hero destanee aiava)

3. AO’s YouTube channel premiered AO Animated, a free livestream that cartoon animated RLA matches and captured moments like this.

4. laura siegemund knocked out AO24 finalist zheng qinwen R2, which doesn’t help how much people dislike her already after her match against coco gauff at USO23

5. 18 year old, ATP next gen champion joao fonseca battled through qualifying and knocked out 9th seed andrey rublev R1. for 24H he was praised as the next hot thing, claimed as part of the next big 3 along with alcaraz/sinner (rip holger rune). unfortunately, he was knocked out R2 by lorenzo sonego, teaching an important lesson on how we shouldn’t make these comparisons so hastily because that kind of expectation is anything but beneficial. leave the guy alone! (btw no hate to joao, i’m excited to see his career flourish!)

6. sunflowered naomi osaka—after being handed quite a draw—took revenge on the last two players that kicked her out of 2024’s hard court slams: the c/k-aros, caroline garcia and karolina muchova

7. lucky loser eva lys reached R4 and achieved her career best performance at a grand slam. the craziest part? she was notified 10 mins before her R1 match that she would be playing. i love a fairytale run!

8. 19 year old, next gen ATP finals runner up learner tien beat the 5 set, 2 AM chaos match specialist himself, daniil medvedev. one of the best matches of the tournament, learner kicked out AO24’s finalist in R2 with a dramatic fifth set tiebreak. he continued to rally himself to R4, the youngest player since 2005 nadal to do so.

shoutout to alex michelsen who defeated AO23 finalist stefanos tsitsipas and karen khachanov, and jakub mensik who defeated casper ruud. next gen!

9. jacob fearnley shut nick kyrgios up

10. novak djokovic refused to do the typical on-court post-match interview with jim courier in an act of protect against the comments of channel 9 host tony jones who heckled his fans and called him overrated.

11. oh AO kits. you were pretty underwhelming. nike hit another low—i can’t believe that tank top dress made it to the women’s final. in both colors. but there were positives. once again, coco and naomi: gorgeous. esp naomi’s sunflowers! ON finally changed their gradient colors. purple BOSS shirt! (unfortunately, didn’t see much of it) and i really loved destanee aiava’s story behind her kits. but jannik’s denim custom fox...this is what you give to the world number 1?

12. iga’s bakery opened again, dishing out a scary number of bagels and breadsticks. in fact, while the ATP had its ugly five setters like usual (jack draper playing 3 in a row), countless players from the WTA gave out 6-0’s and 6-1’s this tournament

13. kei nishikori lived up to his reputation as the five set king, defeating thiago monteiro R1 from two-love down

14. janholger delivered the chaos we expected. alpine-boy, sickly victorian child, jannik sinner practically melted on RLA, taking an 11 min MTO. holger then decided to take his own MTO, 5-3 on jannik’s serve. if that wasn’t enough, jannik decided to break the net, delaying the match another 20 mins. also, there was this point.

15. more “surprise players” (draw wise) reached the second week: nastia pavlyuchenkova (QF) belinda bencic (R4), olga danilovic (R4), paula badosa (SF), lorenzo sonego (QF), gael monfils (R4), elina svitolina (QF), ben shelton (SF), and madison keys (more on her later).

ALSO ben became the first active american man to reach the semis of different 2 grand slams.

16. elina and gael were true tennis power couple goals, knocking out #4 seeds jasmine paolini and taylor fritz R3, hours after the other and reaching the second week (shoutout to gael at 38 years old, still delivering entertaining five setters)

17. the projected novak djokovic and carlos alcaraz QF did happen to the joy of most tennis fanatics and to the horror of carlos’ fan base. the end result? carlos’ dream of the career GS slam was crushed once again, and novak’s thigh became equally injured, leading him to retire in his SEMIFINAL MATCH against zverev. he was boo-ed off the court. jfc.

18. world #1 jannik Winner defended his AO title in straights without giving up any break points, extending his match streak to 37-1 from oct. he only dropped two sets: the king of hardcourt, completely untouchable.

19. adding even more humiliation to the loss, zverev’s history of domestic violence (given the fact that said history has been blatantly ignored by the ATP) was publicly called out during his losers speech

20. and last but certainly not least MADISON KEYS DETHRONED 2X DEFENDING CHAMPION ARYNA SABALENKA, FINALLY EARNING HER WELL-DESERVED GRAND SLAM AT 29 (AT THE TOURNAMENT WHERE SHE MADE HER FIRST SLAM SEMI AS A TEEN), BATTLING THROUGH SABALENKA (1) SWIATEK (2) SVITOLINA (28) RYBAKINA (6) COLLINS (11). absolutely insane.

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I 100% missed many other moments, tag below for your top picks ;)

honorable mentions (that I can think of)

-adm reaching the QFs!

-taylor donating his R1 match earnings to help the LA fires

-keys v swiatek SEMI (including the shadow hitting/serve clock drama)