Jake Delaney and Marc Polmans ensured Australia claimed some of the silverware on offer at Melbourne Park, with the locals winning the boys’ doubles final.
Victorian Delaney and NSW’s Polmans defeated Alex Molcan and Hubert Hurkacz 0-6 6-2 (10-8) in Friday night’s decider.
The teenagers were not even meant to be competing together in their home grand slam.
“I was supposed to play doubles with Duck Hee Lee,” Polmans said.
“When the acceptances came out, he said he was playing with someone else.
“So I messaged Jake on Facebook and asked him if he had a doubles partner for Traralgon and the Australian Open.
“He said `no let’s play’.”
Momentum swung suddenly in the final after the Australians dropped the opening set in just 19 minutes.
They led 7-5 in the super tiebreaker, but Slovakia’s Molcan and Pole Hurkacz fought back to make it 8-8.
But the locals’ clutch experience came to the fore.
“We somehow drew the No.1 seeds in the first round,” Polmans said.
“We managed to scrape through in a super and somehow just kept it rolling from there.
“We won our last couple of matches in supers … we worked really well as a team under pressure.”
Delaney suggested the last-minute pairing was somewhat of a “good luck charm”.
“We won a couple of nationals but then we stopped playing, maybe for about three years,” he said.
“The same thing happened this year over in Europe.
“Literally the night before, he said `mate do you want to play?’ and I said `ok sure’ and we made the final of a grade one.”
Delaney and Polmans will aim to kick on to bigger things, following in the footsteps of Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.
In his final boys’ event on tour, Kyrgios won the doubles title alongside Kokkinakis at Wimbledon in 2013.
No Australian made it through to the last eight of the girls’ singles at Melbourne Park this year and the remaining local boy was knocked out on Friday, with Akira Santillan losing his semi-final.