Call them our latest Awesome Foursome, the golf and tennis aces who wrote a new chapter in Australian sports history.
In the space of seven giddy hours on Monday morning, Jason Day, Rebecca Artis, Bernard Tomic and Samantha Stosur posted memorable tournament wins on various courts and courses on three different continents.
There’s never been a feat like it: Australian men and women hoisting trophies in the two most global of individual sports all on the same day.
Day’s stirring Canadian Open triumph, a week after enduring the torment of missing the British Open playoff by a single shot, was the undoubted crowning glory.
But Artis’s success was no less stylish.
The unheralded 26-year-old from Coonabarabran in western NSW channelled the fighting spirit of her self-confessed sporting idol Lleyton Hewitt to reel in a six-stroke deficit and win the Ladies Scottish Open.
“Sometimes you fight all your life to try and get that first win and sometimes the second win is maybe even harder,” Artis said.
The victory has Artis dreaming of British Open glory herself, with the women’s links major getting underway on Thursday at Turnberry.
Not to be outdone, Day’s fellow Queenslanders Stosur and Tomic hoisted trophies in Austria and Colombia in a rare Australian WTA-ATP title double not achieved since Hewitt and Alicia Molik won the 2005 Sydney International.
Like Day, Stosur’s 3-6 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 win over Italian Karin Knapp on clay at the Bad Gastein Open claycourt event earned her a second title in 2015.
And like Stosur, Tomic boosted his US Open hopes and consolidated his Australian No.1 ranking with a 6-1 3-6 6-2 win over Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the final of the Bogota Open.
In addition to universal acclaim, the four wins earned Day, Artis, Tomic and Stosur a collective $1.75 million.
But not completely lost in the star quartet’s riches was a breakthrough professional win for rising young Victorian golfer Breanna Elliott at the Fuccillo Kia Championship on the second-tier US women’s tour in New York.
Elliott, 23, was equally chuffed to pocket $US15,000 ($A20,395) and the keys to a new car after closing with a two-under 69 for her big win.
“I’ve been driving a rental all year and this car is definitely the cherry on top,” said Elliott.
