1) 2017 men’s final: Roger Federer def. Rafael Nadal
The discussion around who is the real GOAT in history will go on forever. Still, this match will have taken a prominent position in the head-to-head record in the historical clashes between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Federer, who made his return to the top of tennis after being sidelined with a knee injury for six months, trailed his great rival 1-3 in the fifth set before he stormed back, taking six straight games in the process to triumph 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
Federer said after the match that the two players had been so evenly matched in all aspects of the game that he would gladly have accepted a draw if possible. But the Swiss could take pleasure from the fact that he managed to claim his first victory over Nadal at a major since Wimbledon 2007 and his first Grand Slam title in four-and-a-half years.
Federer went into the final despite being 17th seeded, which was his lowest since being No.15 at Wimbledon in 2001 at the start of his career, before Federer turned into the Federer we all became familiar with.
Federer went on to win his sixth Australian Open in 2018, while Nadal was comprehensively outplayed by Djokovic in 2019.
2) 1993 women’s final: Monica Seles def. Steffi Graf
Monica Seles and Steffi Graf clashed in a much-anticipated Australian Open 1993 final, which pitted the sport’s two biggest rivals against one another.
Before the final, Graf had won 11 majors and Seles seven, and the year before, they had faced each other in the Roland Garros and Wimbledon finals, winning one each.
Seles, the two-time defending champion, prevailed 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 over her longtime rival to clinch her eighth major in what was one of the most hyped women's finals for a decade.
Seles had earned five of her seven majors before AO 1993, but she had not faced Graf before, and for the American-Serb, it became a big statement in her career.
Just four months after the final, the 19-year-old tennis world No. 1 Seles was stabbed in the back by a spectator during a quarterfinal match in a tournament in Hamburg against Magdalena Maleeva. The aggressor was Gunter Parche, who was an obsessed fan of Steffi Graf and aimed to stop Seles' dominance to allow Graf to return to the top ranking.
Seles survived the attack but suffered physical and deep emotional trauma, sidelining her from tennis for over two years.
3) 1988 men’s final: Mats Wilander def. Pat Cash
Sweden used to rule world tennis in the 1980s and one of their absolute heroes, Mats Wilander in 1988 won the Australian Open men’s singles title for the third time, defeating Australia's Pat Cash in his own backyeard, 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 6-1, 8-6, in an astonishing match that lasted four hours 27 minutes.
It was reported that Cash, going into the tournament, had been affected by death threats made over the phone after taking part in a tournament in South Africa, which suffered under the Apartheid regime at the end of 1987.
It was the first time that the tournament was played on a cushioned hardcourt surface at the then newly completed National Tennis Centre in Melbourne. Before that, the tournament used to be played on grass in nearby Kooyong. Rebound Ace was regarded as a compromise between standard hard court and indoor surfaces and was perceived as not favouring either the baseliners or serve-volleyers.
Wilander, who had lost his previous four Grand Slam matches against Cash, was leading, 4-1, in the second set when rain halted the match. When play resumed, Cash rallied to win the set in a tiebreaker, and this turned the tide in the game, with Cash taking a 2-1 set lead.
In a final set that took 74 minutes to complete, Wilander twice had to serve to stay in the match, and at one point, he was just two points from defeat. But the Swede proved that he is made of stern stuff and went on to win the marathon final 8-6 in the decider.
4) 2002 women’s final: Jennifer Capriati def. Martina Hingis
On a sweltering Melbourne day, the 25-year-old Jennifer Capriati made one of the most astonishing comebacks in tennis history, when she, trailing by a set and 4-0 down in the second, became the first woman to save four match points to defeat Martina Hingis in the Australian Open final (4-6, 7-6, 6-2).
For both players, the final was to signify the approaching end of their careers, as it turned out to be Capriati's last Grand Slam title, and for the 22-year-old Hingis, who was already beginning to struggle against the next generation of talented players, the agony of that defeat pushed her into an early retirement less than a year later.
Capriati struggled to handle the pressure put on her shoulders by the media, and even quit tennis temporarily in the 90s as she went through personal issues and was arrested for shoplifting and drug possession. However, she relaunched her career and in the final against Hingis showed her amazing fighting spirit.
Hingis lost the second set, 9-7 in the tie break, and to compound her misery, she was awarded a warning for smashing her racquet into the ground. From that moment on, the match was practically finished as Hingis never recovered mentally from the dramatic loss of the second set.
"I just wanted to have it behind me, no matter what," she said, according to the BBC. "I didn’t care at that point. You should always care, but it was just impossible."
5) 2005 men’s final: Marat Safin def. Lleyton Hewitt
For more than a decade, Lleyton Hewitt dominated men's tennis, established himself as No. 1 in the world, and won the US Open as well as Wimbledon. But he never managed to win the trophy that he really wanted, the Australian Open.
He did make it to the final of the 2005 tournament only to lose to Russian star Marat Safin 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. It was the crowning glory of Safin's career, while for Hewitt it was a case of what might have been.
Safin had lost two previous Australian Open finals where he was otherwise regarded as the favourite going into them (to Thomas Johansson in 2002 and to Roger Federer in 2004).
Safin saved a match point en route to the title against Roger Federer in the semi-finals. Hewitt was the first Australian to reach the final since Pat Cash in 1988.
Hewitt needed just 23 minutes to take the opening set in front of a capacity crowd of 16,000 on Rod Laver Arena. But the hard-hitting Russian then hit his thighs as if to get the blood flowing, and it seemed to do the trick as he gradually settled into his stylish stride and turned the tide against an increasingly frustrated Hewitt, who even received a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct for gesturing towards a line judge.
6) 2012 men’s final: Novak Djokovic def. Rafael Nadal
You cannot complete this list without also including the 2012 men's final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal as the Serb and the Spaniard duelled for five hours and 53 electrifying minutes, setting a record for the longest Grand Slam final ever.
The match surpassed the previous record of four hours and 54 minutes when Mats Wilander defeated Ivan Lendl at the 1988 US Open.
In one of the most impressive spectacles in sport ever, the two players continued trading blows in a titanic clash that peaked with an exhausting 31-shot rally that caused Djokovic to fall on his back and sent Nadal stumbling to the sidelines.
With both players at their highest levels, the match was regarded as a clash of impeccable quality throughout the duration of play. After a gruelling encounter, Djokovic finally triumphed 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-5 to hand Nadal his first and only defeat after winning the first set in a major final.
Such was the exhaustion after the physical challenges in the final that both men were forced to defy convention and take a seat during the trophy presentation.