Unless your name is Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz or Rafael Nadal, breaking through on the tennis circuit demands patience. At the start of the Australian Open, the average age of the men’s top 100 players was 26.6, with 19 players aged 30 years or older. Getting in there is far from easy.
Aleksandar Vukic knows all about taking time. The Sydney-born Vukic broke into the world’s top 100 in 2023 but at the age of 28 he had still only won three matches at grand slam level before this week. After beating the No 22 seed, Sebastian Korda, in the second round at Melbourne Park, he’s through to a clash against Britain’s Jack Draper, a major step forward in Vukic’s career, not to mention a guaranteed AU$290,000 and by far his biggest pay cheque.
Vukic is the oldest Australian man to reach the third round of a grand slam for the first time since Wayne Arthurs in 2001. Once a contemporary of Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis, Vukic fell behind his peers and decided to go to Spain to train, only to find the strict regime of “five to six hours of tennis” too monotonous as he soon felt burnt out. Instead, he went to college in the United States and enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he found life altogether more fun, while still training hard.
After beating Damir Dzumhur in the first round, Vukic produced one of his best performances at a grand slam event and best wins of his career as he defeated American Korda in five sets. Good things come to those who wait.
Former Wimbledon champion, Pat Cash, believes Australians tend to take time to hit top form, partly because of geography and partly due to limited opportunities to play at the top level as juniors.
“What happens in Australia, typically, is that they take a little while to get their feet under the ground internationally,” Cash says. “We’ve seen this over the years. Even [Pat] Rafter took a few years to get going, sort of 24 or whatever, before he started cracking it.”
With the exception of Cash and Lleyton Hewitt, who won his first title as a 16-year-old when beating Andre Agassi in Adelaide, and Mark Philippoussis, who beat Pete Sampras in the third round at the Australian Open in 1996, most Australians are a much slower burn.
“Vukic has been bashing around the Challengers for years,” Cash says. “Really talented, but you work out what you need over time.”
Going to college took some of the pressure off Vukic, who enjoyed playing in a team environment. When he graduated, Vukic still took time to find the results he was hoping for. In 2020, he beat Alcaraz in the first round of qualifying at Roland-Garros, and even then knew the Spaniard would be a star. After that, he slowly improved, before earning his first top-10 scalp when he beat Casper Ruud in Shanghai last year.
Now the world No 68 – his career-high was No 48 in August 2023 – will try to achieve another career-first by reaching the fourth round. To do that, he will need to beat Draper, the left-hander who has won back-to-back five-set battles this week, defying a hip injury that kept him out of the United Cup at the turn of the year.
A semi-finalist at the US Open in September, Draper showed his resolve by coping with a baying crowd when beating an ailing Thanasi Kokkinakis in the previous round. He will need to have thick skin once more when he takes on Vukic.
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Draper says having the crowd against him just fires him up while Vukic knows he needed the support to get past Korda. “It was me and the crowd against Sebi,” Vukic says. “Without all that I wouldn’t have won for sure.”
In a year when England travel to Australia for the Ashes, it’s another eagerly-anticipated clash between the sporting rivals. But both Vukic and Draper are also aware that they have already put their bodies through the ringer this week and are more concerned with making sure they pull up healthily.
“I’m definitely calmer [in five-set matches now],” Vukic says. “I don’t know if my body’s happy. My body’s like, ‘can you just make this in three’. You do get used to it a little bit more. You do get more comfortable with it. But listen, I’m not expecting things to get easier the further you go in a grand slam, nor would I want it that way. I’m going to cherish the occasion and go for the win.”
As the No 15 seed and with far greater experience at this level, Draper is the favourite, on paper at least. But win or lose, having waited this long to taste success, few people would begrudge Vukic his moment in the sun.
