Monday Milestone: Cash Out
This Week in History:
1988, January 24
Australian Pat Cash comes within a whisker of winning the first Grand Slam at Melbourne Park in an epic encounter.
“Flick it over to the tennis – who’s playing tonight? What are the markets?”
It was a hot summer night this week, when this annual conversation took place. It’s the second half of January and any attention not given to the cricket, turns to Melbourne Park as it has now, for a quarter of a century, for the Australian Open.
Whilst the tournament dates back to the 1920s, it was when this tennis major switched from the Kooyong grass to the rebound ace at Flinders Park in 1988 that the Australian Open truly became one of the world’s landmark tennis tournaments.
The Delorean parks in January 1988 as Australia celebrates two hundred years of nationhood, the bi-centenary of their settlement, and down in Melbourne a new tennis centre is welcoming the world.
They all came: the Swedish – Edberg and Wilander; the French – Noah and Leconte; Czech world number one Ivan Lendl chasing the missing silverware from his cabinet. But local focus was all on the fourth seeded Aussie, wrapped in a chequered headband (reportedly a nod to Cheap Trick), and an outstanding mullet.
Pat Cash had returned to the Australian Open hoping Flinders Park was a happier hunting ground than Kooyong the previous year, and throughout the first week, it seemed his toughest opponent would be Apartheid protestors who pelted black tennis balls at him following Cash’s earlier decision to play in the South African Open, (providing wonderful context to this era).
Cash cruised through, reaching semi-finals where over the net awaited Ivan Lendl, who Cash had recently denied at Wimbledon. Whilst Lendl was better prepared this time, fighting back every time Cash took a set, eventually, the Australian required five sets to dispose of the Czech in a marathon match.
On the other court two-time Australian Open champion Mats Wilander in an eerily similar lead-up also had taken five sets to dispose of fellow Swede and all-round good guy Stefan Edberg, advancing to his fourth Australian Open final.
So the stage was set. In the first final ever held at what is now Melbourne Park history would be made.
Wilander started better, leading 6-3 4-1 before rain stopped play. The disruption was exactly what Cash needed as he broke back, winning the second set in a tie break, and then the third set 6-3. Wilander wasn’t done yet though, storming back to level the final at two sets apiece with a 6-1 win in the fourth.
By the fifth and final gruelling set the match was already entrenched as an all-time epic Australian Open final. Both men were spent, simply grinding it out for the championship. With no tie-break in the final set, Wilander would ultimately save two championship points before defeating Cash 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 6-1, 8-6 after four hours and 28 minutes in what still remains one of the more incredible Australian Open matches.
It’s something worth remembering, as we tune into the tennis this summer. How Cash got so close, how far the Australian Open has come since then, and how long ago that first final really seems, probably to Pat Cash, more than anyone.
Milestone Five: Pat Cash Moments
- Wimbledon 1987 – The eleventh seed took the world by storm as he lifted the silverware, becoming the first Australian in sixteen years to win, dropping one solitary set along the way.
- Davis Cup 1983 – As an eighteen year old, Cash became the youngest player in a Davis Cup final, defeating Swede Joakim Nystrom in the decisive moment, jumping the net in victory
- Australian Open 1987 – Cash announced himself in his first Grand Slam final, storming back from two sets down to take Swede Stefan Edberg to five sets before ultimately being defeated
- Davis Cup 1986 – Cash comes back from two sets down to defeat Mikhail Pernfors in five sets to secure Australia’s second Davis Cup in four years.
- US Open 1984 – In his first (and only) US Open semi-final, Cash would face Ivan Lendl in a marathon match, ultimately losing a fifth set tie break. Cash would never go beyond the third round at Flushing Meadow again.
