Roger Federer was, somewhat unbelievably, an underdog entering the 2017 Australian Open — seeded 17th after missing six months due to injury.

But the Swiss did the seemingly impossible, shocking himself and the world by ousting four Top 10 players in the ATP Rankings to claim his first major trophy since 2012 Wimbledon. He trailed Kei Nishikori 0-5 in the first set of their Round of 16 encounter before winning in five sets. He fell behind 1-3 in the deciding fifth set of the final against Rafael Nadal. No matter, Federer still found a way to triumph despite his last official tournament prior to that coming at 2016 Wimbledon.

“It was more of a ‘let’s see what happens’ kind of tournament,” Federer said on Sunday. It just so happens that it turned into one of the best of his career. “It was the tournament of the year for me, no doubt about it.”

But now, whether Federer agrees with it or not, he is back in his usual favourite status, arriving at Melbourne Park as the second seed for 2018’s first Grand Slam.

“Having no expectations was so nice after all these years always having expectations, like now this year again,” Federer said. “With age, I feel like, you know, I play down my chances just because I don’t think a 36-year-old should be a favourite of a tournament, it should not be the case. That’s why I see things more relaxed, you know, at a later stage of my career.”

And while Federer may play down his chances, he might be the only one to do so. At 36, the right-hander led the ATP World Tour with seven titles in 2017, including two Grand Slams (Australian Open, Wimbledon) and three ATP World Tour Masters 1000 triumphs (Indian Wells, Miami, Shanghai).

Federer dominated on hard courts especially, winning 91 per cent (40-4) of matches on the surface. There were only two other players who earned 40 or more victories on hard court — David Goffin (43-17, 72 per cent) and Nadal (40-9, 82 per cent).

Thanks to those efforts, the Swiss even has an outside chance at leaving Melbourne with the No. 1 ATP Ranking — he would have to retain the title with Nadal failing to advance to the quarter-finals. It would be the first time he held the top spot since the week of 29 October 2012.

But while there are many things that have been impressive about Federer’s resurgence, one thing stands out — the 36-year-old is having an absolute blast.

“I’ve always enjoyed it. Do I enjoy it more now? It’s unfair if I say yes, because I felt like I loved the time when I was coming up and playing my heroes from TV. I mean, that was extremely cool. It’s like a little boy in the candy store back in the day,” Federer said. “When I was No. 1 in the world, winning all these tournaments, that was a lot of fun, too.

“Now it’s different. Now I have a big family. I have a lot of friends that travel the world with me. I get to see familiar faces again at all these events because I’ve made so many friends over the course of my career… It’s definitely great times. Is it the best ever? I’m not sure. It’s definitely a lot of fun right now.”

And while Federer has fun, nobody in Melbourne will enjoy facing him this fortnight. The 19-time Grand Slam champion begins his quest for major title No. 20 against Aljaz Bedene on Tuesday evening on Rod Laver Arena.

A LOOK BACK
East Hotel Canberra Challenger (Canberra, Australia): Australia has been a home away from home for Italian veteran Andreas Seppi. A trio of Round of 16 appearances at the Australian Open included upsets of Marin Cilic in 2013, Roger Federer in 2015 and Nick Kyrgios in 2017. The 33-year-old’s success Down Under has continued in 2018, picking up his eighth ATP Challenger Tour title on Saturday in Canberra. 

It was his first title at any level since 2014, when he won on home soil in Ortisei. Seppi overcame sixth seed Marton Fucsovics 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 in the final and is primed for another run into the second week at Melbourne Park. He will open the first Grand Slam of the year against French teenager Corentin Moutet.

Bangkok Open 2018 (Bangkok, Thailand): Marcel Granollers could not have asked for a better start to 2018. The 31-year-old Spaniard completed back-to-back titles in Bangkok to open his campaign, extending his win streak to 10 in a row. A 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 victory over second seed and countryman Enrique Lopez Perez clinched the crown for Granollers on Sunday. It marked the second straight week in which he rallied from a set down in the final.

In total, the Barcelona native lifted his sixth ATP Challenger Tour trophy. Granollers followed in the footsteps of fellow former Top 50 stalwart Janko Tipsarevic in going back-to-back in Bangkok. Last year, the Serbian completed the feat en route to nomination for Comeback Player of the Year in the 2017 ATP World Tour Awards presented by Moët & Chandon. 

What a start to 2018 for @M_Granollers!

✅ Back-to-back titles in Bangkok
✅ 10-match win streak
✅ Up 44 spots to No. 133 in ATP Rankings pic.twitter.com/tTwboV3mAL

— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) January 14, 2018

A LOOK AHEAD
The lone tournament of the week is in Koblenz, Germany, where Andrey Kuznetsov leads the field at the indoor hard-court event. Marco Cecchinato is seeded second, with Sergiy Stakhovsky and Oscar Otte rounding out the Top 4 in the draw. Former Top 10 players Ernests Gulbis and Tommy Robredo are also in action, as well as 17-year-old Nicola Kuhn. The #NextGenATP is on the rise and will be looking to complete his Top 200 ascent in the ATP Rankings.

View Koblenz Draw

Matters at one point had gotten so bleak for Stan Wawrinka, the three-time Grand Slam champion feared he might never play a professional match again, let alone compete in this year’s Australian Open. A tough knee injury that kept the 32-year-old out of competition after Wimbledon in 2017 forced him to undergo surgery in August, and since then it has been a battle toward recovery for the Swiss. 

And while his journey is nowhere near over, Wawrinka will pass a major hurdle this fortnight.

“I think the fact that I’m here and I’m going to play the first one [Grand Slam], it’s a big victory,” Wawrinka said. “It’s the best that I could have dreamed when I had the surgery, is to be here sitting in front of you and to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to play the first match’. That’s something really good from my side, especially from the knee. The knee is getting way better. I still have a lot of work to do physically and also tennis-wise to get to my top level… I need to start somewhere anyway.”

Wawrinka admitted that it has been anything but easy getting to this point.

“It’s been six months now and it’s been really tough, to get back to a place where I can play again,” Wawrinka said. “But now, I’m feeling better. I’m slowly getting there. It was a last-minute choice to come here [to Melbourne] for a week and just practise, without even knowing if I could play the event or not. But after a few months being at home, I realise this is the right choice, practising a lot and getting my knee better.”

For Wawrinka, the physical pain that came with the eight weeks he spent on crutches was right on par with the mental anguish he was forced to endure along with it.

“The thing is, it’s always complicated when you were at that (elite) level before, then you get injured, and then you have to deal with the psychological pain as well,” Wawrinka said. “It’s tough to explain because some people think ‘Oh, come on, you have this amazing life, why are you complaining, what’s not to feel great about’? The hardest part is, what should you tell people, and what should you keep to yourself?”

Just being able to lace up his sneakers at this year’s Australian Open is an accomplishment for Wawrinka. The World No. 9 has stayed in constant contact with his doctor since undergoing surgery to make sure he chooses the right time to return, and he feels ready to test himself in Melbourne.

“I think that here’s a good starting point, to get pushed, and to see how I react mentally, and how I’m going to feel when I’m playing these matches.

“There’s always a little risk, for sure, especially starting up again after six months away,” Wawrinka said. “You’re going to get more tight, you’re going to get nervous, you’re not going to feel as comfortable in a match as in practice. But my knee is holding up — that’s most important.”

As for planning beyond the Australian Open, Wawrinka is taking matters one step at a time — the first step in his comeback may prove most important, after all. It all begins in the first round against Ricardas Berankis. 

“My main goal is first to get to the level I want to be physically,” Wawrinka said. “I know I need a few weeks, maybe a month. I don’t know, I’ll see. That’s my first goal. Then I will decide what will be the next goal.”

For most players, five singles titles, two ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophies and a career-high ATP Ranking of No.3 — all by the age of 20 — would be tough to top. As Alexander Zverev proved over the course of 2017, he isn’t most players — and he also isn’t easily satisfied.

“I think improving on the Grand Slam performances is one thing [to work on],” Zverev said. “The furthest I got was to the fourth round of Wimbledon. A lot of times it wasn’t because I played badly, but because I played very good opponents; I lost to [Rafael] Nadal. I lost to Milos Raonic at Wimbledon. Both times in five sets. That’s nothing to worry about too much. But obviously that’s one goal for me this year.”

In May 2017, Zverev downed a tough slate of opponents — current World No. 11 Kevin Anderson and four players who were inside the Top 30 of the ATP Rankings, including Novak Djokovic in the final, to lift the Internazionali BNL d’Italia trophy and become the youngest winner of an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title in 10 years (since Djokovic). Zverev continued his run of form by claiming another ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy three months later at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, where he defeated Roger Federer 6-3, 6-4 to hoist the title. To close the year on a high note, Zverev became the youngest qualifier at the Nitto ATP Finals since Juan Martin del Potro at the 2008 season finale.

While he has achieved plenty, the 6’6” German can still pick out his own shortcomings. And while the Grand Slam losses might not keep him up at night, that doesn’t mean Zverev hasn’t spent his waking hours calculating ways to improve. And if any feather is missing in his cap, it is a breakout performance at a major — Zverev has yet to advance to a quarter-final at a Grand Slam.

“I’m No.4 in the world for a reason,” Zverev said. “I’m not trying to sound cocky or anything, but I’ve always said that I’ve been working hard physically; I’m always trying to improve my performances at Grand Slams. Hopefully I can do so this week.”

Zverev feels that cardio has not played a factor in his early losses. The right-hander believes he can last five sets if pushed to the limit; his opponent’s skill levels had more to do with his losses at the Grand Slams than his fitness.

“For me, physically when I go five sets, I feel fine,” Zverev said. “As I said, I lost to Nadal on a grass court and [Raonic] on a hard court. So, it’s not a big thing to worry about for me. As I said, I had one bad match at a Grand Slam last year, at the US Open. Besides that, I don’t think it was that big of a deal.”

Zverev will have a chance to show why those losses were not “that big of a deal” at Melbourne Park, where he begins his campaign against Thomas Fabbiano.

The potential competition from all comers in Melbourne hardly bothers the German. But if he is to match or top his career-best performance at a major, advancing to or further than the Round of 16, he may need to take out his older brother, Mischa Zverev, in the third round to do it. How would he handle that moment?

“I think it would be a special moment for all [the family],” Zverev said. “I mean, two brothers playing at a Grand Slam against each other, you don’t see that very often. If it happens, of course I want to win and I think he will want to win as well. It will be a fun moment for the entire family.”

The awards are usually given to one man and one woman, but the ITWA’s 120 members voted overwhelmingly in favour of making the men’s award a joint presentation to Federer and Nadal in Melbourne. The winner of the women’s award will be announced next week.

The ITWA represents the world’s leading tennis journalists. Its awards recognise a combination of achievements on the court, conduct that shows tennis in the best possible light and co-operation with the media.

Both Nadalvand Federer have won Ambassador of the Year honours in the past as individuals, but this is the first time they have been given the award jointly.

The Spaniard and the Swiss each enjoyed a plethora of success in 2017, sharing the year’s four Grand Slam titles and ending the season as the No. 1 (Nadal) and No. 2 (Federer) players in the ATP Rankings.

Paul Newman, the ITWA’s co-President, said: “Besides their achievements in terms of trophies, both Roger and Rafa were once again great ambassadors for their sport in the way that they conducted themselves on and off the court.

“They both understand that a good relationship with the media helps everyone and we are always grateful for the time they give to their media commitments.”

The players were presented with their awards before play begins at the season’s first Grand Slam on Monday.

If there’s anything Grigor Dimitrov learned in 2017, it’s how to rebound from big losses. 

It was the semi-finals of the Australian Open, the season’s first Grand Slam. The opponent was Rafael Nadal, a marquee name on the ATP World Tour with more Grand Slam titles than he had fingers to count them. He won the event in 2009. He was a former World No.1 in the ATP Rankings. 

Dimitrov? He was ranked lower, had far less experience, and an unfavourable record in their FedEx ATP Head2Head. In a tight five-set, nearly five-hour decision that would end up being one of the best matches of the year, he lost the match.

But Dimitrov’s 2017 season would end up being his best yet. After sweeping through the field to claim the title at his home tournament in Sofia, the Bulgarian would end up claiming his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title in Cincinnati, eventually punctuating an already stellar season with the trophy at the prestigious season-ending Nitto ATP Finals. 

All of that began with a loss.

“Right after I finished the match, I watched it the following day,” said Dimitrov of his epic Melbourne encounter with Nadal. “Almost the whole thing. I was so inadequate; I was just out. I was thinking, ‘how did I lose that match?’” 

But after giving himself time to reflect on the match, his perspective changed. “I saw on the break points, for example, I couldn’t have done anything else. I played the right shot, the right thing. But he came through with his game. That was it.

“I’ve learned so much from that match. There’s so many bittersweet memories from it, [it] kind of set up a great year for me. I think I really, really learned a lot from it. After I came back to Europe, played good indoors, had kind of a good start of the year.”

Dimitrov hopes that 2018 will be yet another season in which he can hit the milestones that he has long expected of himself, but insists that he doesn’t want to change too much in the season ahead. With tennis careers becoming more like marathons than sprints, the 26-year-old Bulgarian aims to stick to his guns.

“Obviously I’ve achieved certain things that I’ve always wanted to. I always wanted to be a top-five player. I did it. Obviously I wanted to win a Masters 1000 event, and I did it,” said this year’s third seed at the Australian Open. “So as a player, you like to set yourself goals. That also helps you get up in the morning and make sure you work towards that.

“But, again, I just don’t feel like I want to do anything different or change things up because that’s what I’ve been doing pretty much all my life,” he added. “That’s all the buildup that I have till now. That’s why the results are coming.”

Dimitrov kicks of his Australian Open against a qualifier, with Andrey Rublev, the No. 30 seed, looming in the third round. Dimitrov was upset by the #NextGenATP Russian at the US Open last season—and only time will tell if he learned from that match.