2012 Australian Open – Men's Singles

Men's singles of the Australian Open in 2012.

The defending champion Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray reached as before at the U.S. Open in 2011 and the French Open in 2011, the four top-seeded player the semifinals. At the Australian Open, it was recently given this constellation in 2005. While Nadal in the first semifinal won in four sets against Federer and thus after his title win in 2009, reached the final for the second time, the second semi-final between Djokovic and Murray went the full distance. After more than four and a half hours of play time, Djokovic prevailed scarce; for him it was according to his titles in 2008 and 2011, the third finals in Melbourne.

The final set with a running time of five hours and 53 minutes set a new record in this tournament; the previous record of 5 hours and 14 minutes had Nadal and Fernando Verdasco set up three years earlier in the semifinals. At the same time it was the longest Grand Slam final of all time, exceeding all applicable until then record, which in 1988 had been set up by Mats Wilander and Ivan Lendl at the U.S. Open, by almost an hour. However, included in the total game time was a short pause, as in the fourth set the roof of the Rod Laver Arena had to be closed due to onset of rain. With 7-5 in the fifth set to Djokovic finally prevailed and thus won his third Australian Open title and his fifth overall Grand Slam title. Nadal however, lost for the third time in a row a Grand Slam final, such a series had never existed.

Biggest surprise of the tournament was the Japanese Kei Nishikori, the first time in his career the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament reached and on the way there defeated, among others, Jo -Wilfried Tsonga, who had been regarded for his title at the warm-up tournament in Doha as dark horses. Also for attention attended the two Australian Lleyton Hewitt and Bernard Tomic: Former world number one Hewitt, meanwhile, slipped to place 181 in the world rankings and only due to a wildcard in the main draw, reached by beating the seeded players Andy Roddick and Milos Raonic the second round, where he Novak Djokovic won against at least one set win. The 19 -year-old Tomic defeated Fernando Verdasco with Alexander Dolgopolov and also two seeded players, but he took against Verdasco a 0-2 record behind. In the second round, however, he was then a chance against Roger Federer.

For a small scandal occurred in the second round match between Tomas Berdych and Nicolas Almagro: After Berdych had won the match in four short sentences, he denied his opponent the customary handshake at the net. He imputed Almagro, that the latter had previously shot him intentionally to the shoulder. The audience had no understanding of this and booed Berdych during the subsequent interview several minutes out.

• 2.4.1 Bottom Half 1
• 2.4.2 Bottom Half 2
• 2.4.3 Bottom Half 3
• 2.4.4 Bottom Half 4

Seedings

Main Round

Explanations

• Q = qualifier
• WC = Wild Card
• LL = Lucky Loser

• ALT = substitute ( alternate )
• PR = Protected Ranking
• SE = Special Exempt

• R = Task ( retired )
• D = disqualification
• Supra = Walkover

Quarterfinals, semifinals, finals

Upper half of

Upper half of 1

Upper half 2

Upper half 3

Upper half of 4

Bottom half

Lower half 1

Lower half 2

Bottom Half 3

Lower half 4

Purse

At the Australian Open, 2012, the following prize money was awarded for the achievement of the corresponding round in singles.

* As of January 2012, rounded to 100