The nice kids won

They're done with big-time tennis down under for another year. The Australian Open concluded over the weekend with Elena Rybakina, nominally of Kazakhstan, and Carlos Alcaraz, most definitely of Spain, winning the singles titles. 

The Russian-born Rybakina defeated Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, and Carlitos took care of Novak Djokovic of Serbia, in the finals. The women's match was close; the men's, less so.

History was made on the men's side, as Alcaraz became the youngest man ever to win all four major tournament titles in his career. History was also not made, in that had Djokovic won, he would have amassed the most Grand Slam trophies of any player ever. To reach that pinnacle, he would have had to beat both of the two top players in the world, Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner of Italy, a couple of days apart. Under those circumstances, one out of two ain't bad.

The vibes seemed positive all around as two weeks of intense action wound down in the heat of midsummer Melbourne. Not much attention was paid to Sabalenka, who isn't a particularly good loser, and Djokovic played his elder statesman role as graciously as ever. He didn't promise the crowd he could make it back next year, but he didn't rule it out, either. Djokovic has won the Australian more times than anybody (that'd be 10), and surely they'd love to have him back. But when you're 37 years old and atill playing pro tennis, 12 months ahead is way too long a time to be planning anything.

The next big tennis throwdown is on clay, in Paris, in May. Meanwhile, there's the football spectacle on Sunday, and more importantly, pitchers and catchers report for spring training a week from tomorrow.