The locker room never sleeps, as Boris Becker likes to remind us. So, as contenders and dreamers exchange their ritual knowing glances in Melbourne this weekend, it is a restless place again, more so than in a long while, though. While Becker’s star student, the world No1, Novak Djokovic, is the firm favourite to win the men’s singles title at the 2015 Australian Open, picking the other semi-finalists is far more problematic.
Andy Murray, seeded No6, is in the mix again, alongside the rivals he calls the “obvious suspects”: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and the incumbent Stan Wawrinka. Obvious they may be, but not complacent.
Hunting down the front-runners with heightened conviction are a handful of young players eager to emulate the newly garlanded major champions, Wawrinka and Marin Cilic (who is absent injured). Given there were different champions in the four 2014 slams, there is a growing sense that any one of at least a dozen players has realistic ambitions over the next fortnight.
The best of the rest are, by general consensus, Milos Raonic, Kei Nishikori and Grigor Dimitrov, who have been quietly making their case for a couple of years. But all the established players will have to negotiate an unusually tricky first week, watching the progress of long-shots such as the teenagers Nick Kyrgios and Borna Coric, who both beat a struggling Nadal last year and are plainly aware their rivalry over the next decade might be as enthralling as that between Federer and Nadal was during the past one.
A fresh face among the new intake beaming as broadly as any on Saturday was Kyle Edmund, just turned 20, who is realistic about his chances (he had earlier arranged to play in a Challenger in Hong Kong) but thrilled to join Murray and James Ward in a three-man British contingent after qualifying for his first slam by beating the promising Australian wildcard Dane Propoggia 6-7, 6-4, 9-7.
To his relief, probably, the player seen as the best of Britain’s next generation drew neither the Scot nor the Londoner, and takes the next step of the upward curve of his career against the American world No39 Steve Johnson. Ward plays 31st seed Fernando Verdasco, which is a big ask. “He really wants me and Liam [Broady] to do well,” Edmund said of Murray. “He is texting us and saying: ‘Well done and best of luck.’ It is a nice feeling when someone like that wants you to do well.”
Murray said: “I trained with him in Miami for about eight or nine days. He has a good attitude, very calm, got his feet on the ground. The first five or six months of last year he was a bit stuck, but the end of the year he definitely made some improvements. Qualifying for his first slam, the way he reacted at the end, it means a lot to him.”
There is an air of calm about Murray, meanwhile, as he prepares for a first-round match on Monday against the Indian qualifier Yuki Bhambri, a 22-year-old product of the Bollettieri coaching academy and a former junior world No1 who is No314 in the ATP rankings.
Murray, who is free of injury and content after coming through the discomfort of sacking his assistant coach, Dani Vallverdu, and long-time conditioner, Jez Green, added: “When things aren’t working well, there’s not a positive atmosphere and it’s not good for anybody. When that changes and everyone’s working together, that makes things better. The last two months for me have been very, very good.”
This is the first time since Murray, Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski and Josh Goodall contested the 2006 US Open that more than two British men have been in the main draw of a major, so the mood is upbeat. However, Rusedski, who briefly coached Edmund, issued a qualified warning on Eurosport. “This will be the defining year for Andy – 2015 will tell us if he will ever win a major again,” he said.
“Physically, he looks very, very well and his performance the other week in Abu Dhabi, where he absolutely destroyed Rafael Nadal in two sets, was the best I’ve seen him play in a long time. But he has the toughest draw in the tournament. The first week looks good, but he has a very rough second week when he could have to beat Grigor Dimitrov, Roger Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic to go all the way. It’s a brutal draw.”
Earlier, Federer (whose parents considered emigrating to Australia when he was young) flat-batted requests to emulate Djokovic’s not bad impression of the local accent. “I’m not very good at that,” Federer said, not the sort of admission we are used to hearing from the Swiss.
He was in good spirits, though, comfortable in a place where he has won four of his 17 majors (indeed, there can hardly be a tournament he does not embrace), and described the southern capital as, “sort of laid back, very nice and relaxed, well organised”. If tennis players were cities, Federer might be Melbourne.
He will be switched on, however, when he plays the Taiwanese player Lu Yen-Hsun – who numbered top-tenners Tomas Berdych and David Ferrer among his 24 beaten opponents in 2014 – in the first round. Focus is not normally one of Federer’s glitches.
Last year, he arrived with a new racket, a new coach and a back that, while not new, had at least been refurbished. He was still too good for Murray in the quarter-finals and is scheduled to meet him at that stage again, two rebuilt players at different points of their careers but with identical ambitions. Neither considers anything short of reaching a slam final as much of a success.
Nadal, meanwhile, was his self-deprecatory self, with good reason, after a string of disheartening losses since coming back from appendicitis and managing the back and wrist injuries that cut him down in 2014. “Always,” the Spaniard said, “you need to play more matches than four or five in seven months. That’s a thing that everybody knows.”
There is not much about this tournament that “everybody knows”. That is why it could be the most interesting Australian Open since, well, last year’s. The changes and waves of anticipation seem to be coming more quickly than they have done in a long time.
• This article was corrected on 17 January 2015 to reflect the fact that Roger Federer has won four, not three, Australian Opens
