Williamstown wunderkind Andrew Whittington and Australian compatriot Alex Bolt went from the relative obscurity of the show courts to a prime time gig on Rod Laver Arena at the Australian Open.
Whittington and Bolt teamed up in the men’s doubles and like a bolt from the blue made it all the way through to the quarter final stage of a Grand Slam.
The reward was a centre court appearance under lights following the Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka five-set epic on Tuesday night.
The double quarter final stretched into the early hours of Wednesday morning but youngsters Whittington and Bolt were amped up on adrenalin.
Perhaps the big occasion got to the Aussies in the first set of a 6-2 7-6 loss to seasoned campaigners Daniel Nestor (Canada) and Nenad Zimonjic (Serbia).
They seemed overawed with Whittington’s first service game producing two double faults.
The first set lasted just 21 minutes.
Whittington and Bolt soon warmed to the contest and made it a second set struggle for Nester and Zimonjic.
Whittington’s serve and power game got stronger the longer the match wore on and Bolt’s crafty left handed shots at the net proved troublesome to the internationals.
But Nestor, 41, and Zimonjic, 37 – both multiple Grand Slam doubles winners – were never going to let a lead slip against an inexperienced pair.
A straight sets exit was a sour end to a magnificent tournament for Whittington and Bolt.
Whittington, 20, ranked 368th in the singles, and Bolt, 21, ranked 471st, put their names on the map like so many other young Australian players did in this tournament.
They got lucky in the opening round when Vasek Pospisil (Canada) and Julian Knowle (Austria) had to retire in the first set after a back injury to Pospisil.
But Whittington and Bolt took full advantage, not only earning a dream match-up with three-time Davis Cup champion Fernando Verdasco and his teammate David Marrero, but toppling the third-seeded Spanish giants in straight sets 7-6 6-3.
It was an incredible performance.
No one gave them a hope but they had the self-belief to cause an upset.
Out to prove they were no one hit wonders, Whittington and Bolt took to the court against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Pablo Carreno Busta – both Spaniards ranked in and around the top 60 in the world – and pulled off another shock to come from a set down to win 6-7 7-6 7-5 in a thriller on Margaret Court Arena.
That victory gave Whittington and Bolt a chance to fulfil a lifelong dream of playing on centre court at a Grand Slam.
The morning following the quarter final, Whittington took to Twitter to convey his feelings about his whirlwind experience and translated it into longer words minus the hash tags, it read: “Memories. What a week. Can’t believe it still. Please sink in”.
It might be an idea to add the names of Whittington and Bolt to Kokkinakis, Kyrgios, Duckworth and Barty as names to look out for in the future of Australian tennis.
