[Chloe le Bopper]

The following are all top 20 players who have not ever made it past the fourth round in Oz. I broke them into groups, according to the furthest round they have reached (2nd, 3rd, 4th).



The following players have never been past the fourth round:

1- Lleyton Hewitt
6- Roger Federer
8- Tim Henman
18- Fernando Gonzalez



The following players have never been past the third round:

4 - Juan Carlos Ferrero
15- Guillermo Canas
19- Alex Corretja
20- Sjeng Schalken



The following have never made it past the second round:

10- Andy Roddick
12- David Nalbandian
16- Paradorn Srichaphan

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

There are 11 players who have never made the final 8 in Austrlia, who are in the top 20. 5 of the 11 are top ten players.

Think we might see some changes to this list come February?

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

I'm going to be bold here, and make a few predictions.

1 - The following will pass the fourth round this year:
Hewitt
Ferrero
Federer

 

[Dissident]

Interesting.
The Aussie is the GS with the weird results always... Start of season, the top players are all coming back from a bigger relaxing time (especially top 8 who played the Masters).

I remember Guga saying that in the Aussie 2000, 2001 and 2002, he was feeling totally out of it, since he had been playing untill the end of the previous season, so he had to relax for longer, and had a poor preparation.
In my opinion, its just dumb to have a Grand Slam already in the third week of play...

 

[KFS]

The one player comes up into my mind immediately is Guga!!!

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

I orginally included Guga.

However because I was dealing with top 20 players, I removed him.

For those interested, his best finish is the second round, right?

 

[Dissident]

Yes. He managed to lose to Boutter last year, leading 2 sets to love and up a break.
They year before, he lost to Rusedski on round two.

2002
1st round - lost to Julien Boutter 63 64 57 36 36

2001
1st round - beat Gaston Gaudio 75 67 63 75
2nd round - lost to Greg Rusedski 64 46 36 62 79

2000
1st round - lost to Portas 64 64 46 67 46

1999
1st round - beat Marcos Ondruska 6-4 6-3 6-3
2nd round - lost to Marat Safin 3-6 7-5 6-4 3-6 4-6

1998
1st round - beat Jacobo Diaz 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-2
2nd round - lost to Nicolas Escude 7-5 3-6 1-6 5-7

1997
1st round - beat Mikael Tillstrom 7-5 7-6(11) 3-6 6-4
2nd round - lost to Neville Godwin 7-6(5) 3-6 1-6 ?-6 (incomplete in atptennis.com)

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

THanks hitman

I did have him included, but removed him because I didn't feel like arguing about my top two players parameter.

 

[Pea]

Alex has had such a bad record at the Aussie Open. He usually plays Sydney before the Aussie, but the last 2 years he didn't. And his results for that was losing first round this year to James Blake and not even playing the Aussie Open in 2001.
Not to mention his 0-6 0-6 1-6 lost to Lleyton in 2000!

 

[luvbadboys]

I was rooting for Marat/Lleyton to win Oz'03 but since you reminded me I am now hoping Guga wins it.
Come on Guga!!! Kick some ass!!!!

 

[TheBoiledEgg]

Why bother including Henboy ???
we all know he's impotent apart from Wimbledon

Gonzo did play Aus Open in 2002 and he made 4th rd

He beat Sargsian in rd1
Robredo in rd2
Alex Kim in rd 3
then lost to of all people Stefan Koubek

 

[King Aaron]

I'm gonna say Paradorn will do better than he ever had before

 

[Nacho]

omg Becca how could you say Gonzalez did never play the Oz Open... not only he reached the 4th round, but also I think he started to be 'known' since then lol

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

Why bother including Henboy ???
we all know he's impotent apart from Wimbledon

Gonzo did play Aus Open in 2002 and he made 4th rd

He beat Sargsian in rd1
Robredo in rd2
Alex Kim in rd 3
then lost to of all people Stefan Koubek

THanks - my bad. The ROland Garros site where I got that all from didn't have any Aussi stats for him. I will edit it in the correction.

Henman was included because he is a top twenty player who has never been past the 4th round.

I thought that I made the parameters pretty clear.

 

[heya]

The list should include injury as the reason for not getting past
the 2nd round.

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

WHy should a list that is composed of nothing but flat out stats, have an asterix to explain each poor performance?

That is what the replies to the thread are intended for.

I'm certaintly not alering my list to explain why each has done poorly, when the only point of the list was to show who had not made it past the given round.

 

[warfreakbix]

Hi, if I remember correctly the only time Marat performed well at the AO was last year. He's usually out before he reaches the third round (I think) and remember this the GS where he was fined for tanking a match. I guess you could include Marat as a player who does not have a stellar record in AO.

 

[Experimentee]

Gonzo and Nalbandian are relative newcomers, and Paradorn has only improved recently, so they should be able to improve on previous showings. I'm not sure but i think 2002 was the first year Gonzo was in the Aus Open main draw, and he got to the 4th round. I'd say its a pretty good effort. The other players i think are slow starters, they are always rusty when they come from the off season, and i dont think they play any warmups apart from Hewitt, Henman and Federer.

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

The other players i think are slow starters, they are always rusty when they come from the off season, and i dont think they play any warmups apart from Hewitt, Henman and Federer.

Well Ferrero plays Syndey. He's only played twice, and one of those time he had a "Davis Cup hang over". Which is why I think that with better preperation and higher expectations, that he is going to do better than he has before.

I don't think that the fourth round is a poor showing depending on the circumstance. Like you mentioned, it was Gonzo's first time in the main draw, so that is a good effort.

I just decided to ax it off before the quarters for interests sake. Originally i had it set at the third round, but changed my mind.

Because for someone like Hewitt, not having been past the fourth round is a poor record. Same for Henman really (even if he is "impotent" anywhere but Wimbledon, heh|).

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

warfreakbix - Marat's record up untill last year wasn't stellar, no. If I erased 2002 he would have made the cut.

But having reached a final, there was just no way that I could include him