Tennis fans love a comeback. Great players can be playing poorly for a set or two and then remarkably turn it up notch -- putting aside a shaky early performance in rediscovering who they really are.

Many Australian Open tennis players have staged such remarkable comebacks. This Betway Insider top 10 list revisits some of the greatest in the tournament’s history.

Who has come back from a two-set deficit to win the Australia Open men’s singles final?

During the post-1968 “Open Era,” only one player in the Australian Open has ever come back from a two-set deficit to win the tournament final. That player was Rafael Nadal in 2022.

Ranking the Top 10 Greatest Comebacks in Australian Open Tennis History

  1. 2023 Women’s Final: No. 5 Aryna Sabalenka defeats No. 22 Elena Rybakina

Match Result: 4-6, 6-3, 6-4

We’ll begin this list by going back one year to the 2023 Australian Open women’s singles final, when No. 5-seeded Aryna Sabalenka stormed back to beat Elena Rybakina. The tall Belarusian was on a roll throughout tournament and had won every set until dropping the first one in the championship match.

Sabalenka dusted herself off and rallied for a tremendous victory, comfortably winning the second and third sets against her opponent from Kazakhstan.

“I want to say sorry for my English because I'm still shaking,” Sabalenka explained in disbelief after the match that resulted in her first major title.

It would be the start of a storybook year for Sabalenka. She reached every Grand Slam event’s semifinal in 2023 and made it all the way to the U.S. Open final. Australian Open tennis was her catalyst!

  1. 2023 Men’s Second Round: Andy Murray defeats Thanasi Kokkinakis

Match Result: 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, 7-5

By 2023, former world No. 1 Andy Murray was no longer competing in tournaments with the hope of winning them. He simply hung around for the love of the game. No match better epitomizes Murray’s competitive fire than his two-set comeback victory over Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round of the 2023 Australian Open men’s singles draw.

Murray had just gone through a five-setter against Matteo Berrettini in the tournament’s opening round, and he had to go the distance again in the second. He survived a frantic third-set tiebreak to stay in the match before clawing his way to victory.

The Murray-Kokkinakis  match lasted five hours and 45 minutes and ended at 4:15 a.m., making it the second latest finish in Grand Slam event history.

  1. 2003 Women’s Semifinal: No. 1 Serena Williams defeats No. 4 Kim Clijsters

Match Result: 4-6, 6-3, 7-5

Entering the 2003 season, the Australian Open women’s singles title was the only major trophy missing from Serena Williams’ mantle. She steamrolled the competition leading up to her semifinal meeting with Belgium’s Kim Clijsters, who was seeded fourth.

To put it nicely, Williams “escaped” this match with a victory. She dropped the first set and found herself trailing 1-5 in the third. In storybook fashion, the American rallied back for a remarkable win that set up a date with her sister, Venus, in the final. She would go on to win that match.

“It was just an unbelievable battle out there, I thought, 'I don't want to lose 6-1.' Then I said, 'I don't want to lose 6-2.' So I just kept fighting. Next thing I know, I came back,” Williams said after beating Clijsters.

  1. 1965 Men’s Final: No. 1 Roy Emerson defeats No. 2 Fred Stolle

Match Result: 7-9, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-1

The first pre-1968 “Amateur Era” entry on this list takes us back nearly 60 years to when two Aussies battled for s first-ever title at the Australian Championships (as the event  was known back then). No. 1 Roy Emerson fell behind two sets to his countryman and world No. 2 Fred Stolle.

There were no tiebreaks back then, as Stolle won the first set 9-7. Emerson dropped the second set before narrowly escaping 6-4 and 7-5 in the third and fourth. With most of the hard work done, he cruised to victory with a decisive 6-1 fifth-set triumph.

Remarkably, it was just the first of six Australian Championships victories for Emerson.

  1. 1908 Men’s Final: Fred Alexander defeats Alfred Dunlop

Match Result: 3-6, 3-6, 6-0, 6-2, 6-3

When did a player come back from a two-set deficit for the first time in Australian Open history? To answer that trivia question, we have to go all the way to 1908, when the American Fred Alexander survived Australian Alfred Dunlop’s early onslaught.

In 1908, the tournament, then known as the Australasian Championships, was being held for just the fourth time. With his victory, Alexander became the first non-Australian to win the tournament.

  1. 1981 Women’s Final: No. 3 Martina Navratilova defeats No. 1 Chris Evert

Match Result: 6-7 (7-4), 6-4, 7-5

The 1981 Australian Open championship match marked the fourth time that American tennis legends Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert faced each other in the final of a Grand Slam event. Navratilova had won two of the first three such meetings, and she stretched her lead to 3-1 with an impressive comeback victory in this match.

This loss stung Evert, who needed her rival’s comfort to pick her up.

“She (Evert) was really depressed. I remember consoling her after the match. I couldn’t walk out of there without doing that. I just saw her sitting there in the training room, and she said to come over. I gave her a hug,” Navratilova explained.

In all, Navratilova won 10 of the pair’s impressive 14 career matches in Grand Slam event finals.

  1. 1995 Men’s Quarterfinals: No. 1 Pete Sampras defeats No. 9 Jim Courier

Match Result: 6-7 (4-7), 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4, 6-3

Should a quarterfinals match rank so high on this list? Yes, and this No. 4 ranking is a testament to the greatness of the 1995 match between Americans Pete Sampras and Jim Courier. In each of the first two sets, Courier edged his higher-seeded countryman. Sampras, the world No. 1, quickly stormed back and leveled the match at two sets apiece.

Shockingly, Sampras broke down crying as he headed for its final set. Sampras’s longtime coach, Tim Gullikson, had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and an exhausted Sampras couldn’t fight the tears any longer as he realized it might be one of the last matches Gullikson would ever see him play. Courier offered to finish the match the following day, but Sampras declined and went on to win the fifth set 6-3.

Sadly, Gullikson passed away the following year.

  1. 1960 Men’s Final: No. 3 Rod Laver defeats No. 1 Neale Fraser

Match Result: 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 8-6, 8-6

Entering the 1960 Australian Championships, future two-time Grand Slam winner Rod Laver had yet to win a tennis major. It didn’t look like 1960 would be his year either – at least not in Australia – where world No. 1 Neale Fraser beat him in the first two sets of the final.

Laver comfortably won the third set before getting the fourth even at 6-6. In an era before there were tiebreaks, Laver broke Fraser to seal the set 8-6. The fifth set followed a similar script, as Laver broke his opponent again after 6-6 to secure his first of 11 Grand Slam tournament championships.

  1. 2002 Women’s Final: No. 1 Jennifer Capriati defeats No. 3 Martina Hingis

Match Result: 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-2

Martina Hingis defeated Jennifer Capriati to win the 2001 Australian Open. She looked well on her way to repeating that feat in 2002 after winning the final’s first set and going up 5-1 in the second.

Capriati had other ideas. She staved off an impressive four championship points over the course of the second set to even the match. The third set would not be as close, as Capriati ran away from Hingis to win her first-ever major.

Fun fact: Capriati set a record by surviving the most championship points of any player in a major final. So, this truly was one of the biggest comebacks in tennis history.

  1. 2022 Men’s Final: No. 6 Rafael Nadal defeats No. 2 Daniil Medvedev

Match Result: 2-6, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-4, 7-5

Simply put, Rafael Nadal’s victory over Daniil Medvedev in the 2022 Australian Open men’s singles final wasn’t just the greatest comeback in Australian Open history – it was one of the greatest tennis comebacks of all time. Consider the circumstances:

  • Nadal earned a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam tournament title.
  • Novak Djokovic was out of the tournament due to visa issues.
  • Medvedev was finally tamed on a hard court.
  • Nadal looked visibly exhausted during the second-set tiebreak.
  • Nadal claimed his second Australian Open title – a full 13 years after his first one.

No doubt about it. This was the biggest comeback in Australian Open tennis history.

Parameters of Rankings

These rankings are based on the performances of each player involved, each player’s tennis legacy, the unlikely nature of each comeback, and the match’s significance in Australian Open history.

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