Australian Open: Famous Points
Sports · Tennis · Australian Open
Famous Points
Highlight reels show you the shot. This page shows you the geometry: the most famous points in Australian Open history, reconstructed on the GreenSet, with real names, real scoreboards, and a click that plays each moment one swing at a time. Melbourne is where tennis matches go longest — the longest final anyone has played, the longest tie-break, and a semi-final that finished after one in the morning are all on this page. The Scoring page teaches how tennis works; this is why the fortnight matters.
Every card below is a stylized reconstruction, drawn from the footage and the written record rather than tracking data: the sequence of shots, their directions, their landing areas, and every score are the real history; the exact flight paths are my illustration. On the two long rallies the shot COUNT and the ending are the record and the shape in between is mine, which the cards say where it applies. Scores, dates and quotes are reference-grade — verified 2026-09-05 — and each card links its record. Where a point isn’t documented shot by shot, I don’t animate it and I say so.
2005 · Semi-final · Rod Laver Arena
The match point that ended in a tweener
Marat Safin d. Roger Federer, 5–7, 6–4, 5–7, 7–6(6), 9–7 · January 27, 2005
Federer had not lost a hard-court match all season and would not lose another one that year. Safin was 25 that day, had been to this final twice and lost both, and was two points from going home. What happened next is the point Australians still describe shot by shot: two lunging volleys, a lob nobody should have reached, and the most famous miss of Federer’s career.
| Federer | 7 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| Safin | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
Click play and the reconstruction runs once, then waits: the recap of what you just watched appears right here.
Reconstruction, not tracking data: right sequence, right directions, right landing areas, right score — the exact paths are drawn by hand from the footage. That goes for every card on this page; the methodology note has the details.
Safin won the tie-break 8–6, and the fifth set 9–7 after needing seven match points of his own; it finished after midnight on his birthday. He beat Lleyton Hewitt in the final for the second and last major of his career, and never reached another final at one. Federer would win this tournament five more times, and has said this is the loss that taught him how to finish.
The record: the tournament’s record of the 2005 men’s singles and Perfect Tennis’ point-by-point account of the semi-final.
2009 · Semi-final · Rod Laver Arena
Five hours 14, and it ended on a double fault
Rafael Nadal d. Fernando Verdasco, 6–7(4), 6–4, 7–6(2), 6–7(1), 6–4 · January 30, 2009
The longest match in this tournament’s history, and for one night Fernando Verdasco was the best player in the world: 95 winners, more than any man had hit in a match here. It went past one in the morning and was decided by a single point of arithmetic — Nadal won 193 of the 385 played.
| Verdasco | 7 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 30 |
| Nadal | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 40 |
Click play and the reconstruction runs once, then waits: the recap of what you just watched appears right here.
Nadal came back two days later and beat Federer in five sets for his first Australian Open, the first Spaniard to win it — and the record for the longest match here stood until 2012, when the same man played in the one that broke it. Verdasco never went past a major semi-final again, and has said he still thinks about the second serve.
The record: the tournament’s own flashback on the match and the tournament’s record of the 2009 men’s singles.
2012 · Final · Rod Laver Arena
Five hours 53, and the rally in the middle of it
Novak Djokovic d. Rafael Nadal, 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7(5), 7–5 · January 29, 2012
The longest final ever played at any major, and the one match most often put forward as the best. It finished at 1:37 in the morning; both men were given chairs during the ceremony because neither could stand through it. Two moments carry it: the rally that emptied them both, and the three shots that ended it forty minutes later.
| Djokovic | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 0 |
| Nadal | 7 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 0 |
One click per beat: each point the record describes, in order, with the board stepping between them.
Djokovic served it out at 6–5 after saving a break point in the same game, and tore his shirt off at the net. It remains the longest final in the history of any major, and the only Grand Slam final Nadal has lost after winning the first set. Djokovic went on to win this tournament seven more times.
The record: the tournament’s own account of the final and Wikipedia’s record of the 2012 men’s singles final.
2017 · Final · Rod Laver Arena
Twenty-six shots, and the break that decided it
Roger Federer d. Rafael Nadal, 6–4, 3–6, 6–1, 3–6, 6–3 · January 29, 2017
Both men had come back from long injury layoffs and neither was seeded in the top eight; nobody expected either of them to be here, let alone both. Federer, 35, had lost six of their previous seven meetings at majors and had not beaten Nadal at one in a decade. The fifth set turned on one game, and that game turned on one rally.
| Nadal | 4 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 40 |
| Federer | 6 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 40 |
Click play and the reconstruction runs once, then waits: the recap of what you just watched appears right here.
Federer broke for 5–3, then served it out from 15–40 down, finishing on a forehand that landed on the line and was challenged, and upheld. It was his 18th major, five years after his 17th, and made him the first man to win five or more singles titles at three different majors. He won this tournament again the following January.
The record: the tournament’s own match report and the ATP’s set-by-set account of the final.
2022 · Final · Rod Laver Arena
The point that saved a 44-year wait
Ashleigh Barty d. Danielle Collins, 6–3, 7–6(2) · January 29, 2022
No Australian had won this tournament since Chris O’Neil in 1978, and Barty was the world No. 1 playing in front of a country that had spent a fortnight not saying so out loud. She took the first set in 32 minutes. Then Collins won five of six games and served for the second set twice, and the whole thing hung on four or five points in a row.
| Barty | 6 | 4 | 0 |
| Collins | 3 | 5 | 15 |
Click play and the reconstruction runs once, then waits: the recap of what you just watched appears right here.
Barty held for 5–5, held again from 15–30 to force the tie-break, and took it 7–2, finishing with a forehand pass. She won the title without dropping a set, became the first home champion in forty-four years — and retired two months later, at 25, as world No. 1.
The record: the tournament’s own match report and the tournament’s analysis of the turn at 1–5.
2024 · Second round · Rod Laver Arena
Twenty-two points to twenty
Anna Blinkova d. Elena Rybakina, 6–4, 4–6, 7–6(20) · January 18, 2024
The longest tie-break ever played at a major, in a second-round match on a Thursday night. Rybakina was the third seed and the previous year’s runner-up; Blinkova was ranked 57th and had never beaten anyone in the top three. The breaker ran half an hour on its own, and between them they hit fourteen winners inside it.
| Blinkova | 6 | 4 | 6 | 21 |
| Rybakina | 4 | 6 | 6 | 20 |
Click play and the reconstruction runs once, then waits: the recap of what you just watched appears right here.
Six match points saved, four of her own missed, and the tenth converted. It beat the 20–18 tie-breaks of Tsonga–Roddick here in 2007 and Tsurenko–Bogdan at Wimbledon in 2023, and stands as the longest any major has seen. Blinkova lost in the next round; the record is what she has, and nobody can take it from her without playing for three hours.
The record: the tournament’s own piece on the tie-break and the tournament’s day-five women’s wrap.
Methodology. Each animation is a stylized reconstruction I scripted by hand from public footage and contemporaneous match reports — principally the tournament’s own archive, plus the ATP and the outlets linked on each card — not ball-tracking data. What the reconstruction holds exactly: the shot sequence, shot directions, landing areas, endings, and every score shown on the boards. What is illustrative: the precise flight paths and speeds, and on the two long rallies the geometry between the serve and the ending. Where the record does not draw a point shot by shot, there is no card — and three are missing for exactly that reason. Mark Edmondson’s 1976 title, the biggest upset this tournament has staged, is the one that hurts: the only detailed account of its decisive tie-break describes four points whose service order contradicts itself, and I would rather leave the card off than pick a reading. Alcaraz’s 2026 championship point is absent because the tournament’s own point-by-point feed records what ENDED each point and nothing before it. The 2017 and 2022 match points are two strokes deep in the record, so those matches appear here through the points next to them instead. Facts verified 2026-09-05. The court, physics, and player are the same engine as the Scoring walkthrough — every serve lands in a legal box and every shot clears the net by construction — wearing Melbourne’s blue. Footage is linked on the rights-holder’s own site only, never embedded or re-hosted; player names appear nominatively in factual, historical reporting. A new moment earns a card at most once a year — the roster grows after each tournament, if the tournament earns it.