As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the US Open, we look back at the 50 champions who have left an indelible mark on this inimitable event.
There were those who saw it as a fluke, a one-off. Even The New York Times deemed it a “final of upstarts” and perhaps the “most unanticipated Open final matchup in memory.” So when Patrick Rafter and Greg Rusedski stepped onto the newly christened Arthur Ashe Stadium cement on the final Sunday of the 1997 US Open, some tennis fans were left longing for the sport’s marquee names.
Two-time defending champ Pete Sampras had been ousted in the fourth round by Czech Petr Korda. Andre Agassi had been shown the door in the same round, by the No. 13-ranked Rafter. And we were suddenly left with a pair of serve-and-volleyers relatively unknown outside the press room – the amiable Australian Rafter and the Canadian-turned-Brit Rusedski. Rafter didn’t face a Top-10 opponent until the semis, where he defeated Michael Chang, while the unseeded Rusedski dispatched three foes ranked No. 100 or lower in reaching the title tilt.
Battling a throat infection and mourning the death of one of his adopted homeland’s most beloved personalities, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car accident only a week earlier, Rusedski couldn’t find a way to slow Rafter, who went on to prevail, 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, and become the first Australian man to win the US Open since John Newcombe in 1973.
Silencing the skeptics (including John McEnroe, who called him a “one-Slam wonder”), Rafter returned to defend his title the following year, this time defeating fellow Aussie Mark Philippoussis, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-0, and, in doing so, winning over the New York crowd once and for all. His triumph in Flushing Meadows made him the first man in the Open Era to win the Canada Masters, Cincinnati Masters and US Open in the same year, aka the American Summer Slam.
“Now I feel last year wasn't such a fluke then. This year I feel I've consolidated,” said Rafter. “I was sort of struggling with if people respected me for what I'd done or, again, if it was just a fluke. So now I can look at people and think, ‘I have done it again.’”
Though Rafter would never win another major (he reached back-to-back Wimbledon finals in 2000 and 2001), the graceful Aussie did rise to No. 1 in the world and finished his career with a 358-191 record and 21 titles. He was a skilled doubles player, too, winning the Australian Open alongside Jonas Bjorkman in 1999. He remains the last man to reach the semis or better of every Slam in both singles and doubles. In Davis Cup play, Rafter went a combined 21-11 in singles and doubles, helping push Australia toward the 1999 World Group title, the nation’s first in 13 years.
50 Fact: Rafter was undefeated (3-0) in head-to-heads against all-time Slam king Roger Federer and remains the only player with a winning record against the Swiss on three surfaces – clay, grass and hard courts.
