Before the Australian Open begins, it is worth taking a look back at the first two weeks of the season and some accomplishments on the ATP World Tour that should not be overlooked.

Roger Federer wins 1000th match in Brisbane

Roger Federer became just the third player in professional tennis history to record 1,000  official main-draw tournament match wins in his career. The Swiss maestro, who also holds the record for most major titles with 17, won the Brisbane title by defeating Milos Raonic. Only Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors remain ahead of Federer on the all-time wins list. Given he’s still competing at a very high level, he has a chance to get another 253 wins and surpass Connors. That’s a difficult feat, but at a minimum he should finish second on the list ahead of Lendl.

Ivo Karlovic hits ace number 9,000  in Doha

Ivo Karlovic, an eventual semifinalist in Doha, hit his 9000th ace during the tournament. The Croat, who has one of the best, if not the best, serve in tennis history, beat Lukas Rosol in the opening round and threw down 27 aces in the process. That crossed the mark of 9,000  and places him in second place on the all-time list. He overtook Andy Roddick to reach second and is now only behind Goran Ivanisevic. The 35-year-old only has so many matches left in his career, but he still has a shot at getting to No. 1. Even more amazingly, he’s accomplished 9,092  aces in just 486 matches, just over half the number that it took Ivanisevic to get to 10,183 . His game is one-dimensional, but when the Karlovic serve is clicking it’s enjoyable to watch some of the world’s best tennis players unable to even get a racquet on his serves.

Qualifiers find success in lead-up to Australian Open

If you’re a fan of the unheralded qualifiers, you have to be happy about what has happened the past couple of weeks on the ATP Tour. It started in Chennai, where qualifier Aljaz Bedene won seven matches to reach the final, the first of his career at the ATP level. Bedene defeated top-20 players Feliciano Lopez and Roberto Bautista Agut en route, as the joint British/Slovenian saved multiple match points in the second of those matches to triumph. Even better for Bedene, he qualified for the Australian Open thereafter and will be taking part in the main draw, in what has been a great month for him.

Qualifier Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia won his first career ATP main draw match, dispatching veteran Mikhail Youzhny in Doha in an unexpected result.

In Sydney and Auckland the next week, even more extraordinary things happened. In Sydney, Viktor Troicki defeated Mikhail Kukushkin in the first ever ATP final contested between two qualifiers. Troicki has been hot on the comeback trail and won eight matches in a row, including a win over the seeded Martin Klizan, to capture his first title since 2010. Kukushkin won seven matches in a row and knocked out Juan Martin del Potro, in his third match back on tour, en route to the final, which was just the third of Kukushkin’s career.

In Auckland, 21-year-old Czech Jiri Vesely won his maiden ATP title and made his move into the top 40 by defeating Adrian Mannarino. The Czech knocked off top-15 player Ernests Gulbis, along with Donald Young and Kevin Anderson, in consecutive matches on the hard courts to reach the final. Similar to the others, he has won seven straight matches. Lucky losers also had success in Auckland, since the draw was potholed by withdrawals by the likes of Tommy Robredo and David Ferrer. Lucas Pouille had his best-ever result at the ATP level. The young Frenchman lost in qualifying to Vesely but won a pair of matches in place of Robredo to reach the semifinals. He pushed Mannarino to three sets but came up just short in that battle against his countryman. Alejandro Falla also made the quarterfinals as a lucky loser in Auckland.

Aussie contingent puts up solid results on home soil

The Aussie men did not win any tournaments on home soil, but overall as a group they performed well, including many of the youngsters. John Millman, a 25-year-old who has yet to break the top 100, pushed Roger Federer to three sets in the third round of Brisbane in what was the toughest test for the Swiss before the final.  James Duckworth, a 22-year-old who also has yet to break into the top 100, reached the quarterfinals In Brisbane after he knocked off Gilles Simon in an upset and then toppled veteran Jarkko Nieminen before falling to Federer.  In addition, the big-serving Sam Groth reached the quarterfinals in Brisbane, where he pushed eventual finalist and top-10 player Milos Raonic to three difficult sets. Groth seems to have made strides with his game to try to push himself to the next level.

Bernard Tomic reached the quarterfinals in both Brisbane and Sydney. As the former top junior Aussie, he has yet another chance to prove to the nation and the tennis world that he’s serious about being a top ATP player and is truly going to give it all he has at this stage in his career. Tomic beat Sam Querrey and his promising young countryman Thanasi Kokkinakis in Brisbane, and beat Igor Sijsling and the seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber in Sydney. It’s not the best results he’s ever had, but it’s still encouraging.

Overall, it appears that Australia has at least four promising young talents with Tomic, Kokkinakis, Nick Kyrgios, and another young gun, Omar Jasika, who came up just short of qualifying for the Australian Open and is still a teenager. They could all be top-20 players, while a host of secondary talents such as Groth and Millman can at least be solid ATP players. The mantle has finally been passed on from Lleyton Hewitt, the last great Aussie tennis player to win a Grand Slam, and the green and gold will be a threat again in Davis Cup with so many capable players available. 

Swede Elias Ymer breaks through

Eighteen-year-old Swede Elias Ymer won his first ATP main draw match last year, and he’s off to a solid start in 2015. He won his second career ATP match in Chennai over Igor Sijsling and then went on to qualify for the Australian Open, where he will become the first Swedish player to participate in a men’s Grand Slam main draw since Robin Soderling contracted mono. Swedish tennis has the legendary lineage of Bjorn Borg, among others, to call on, but they have been tennis minnows since Soderling went out, and it’s nice to see another of their players having success. Ymer beat former ATP-level player Benoit Paire, along with two other competitors, to qualify for the main draw, and he will have a chance to at least make the second round.

Upset of the month: Doha R1: Michael Berrer d. Rafael Nadal 1-6 6-3 6-4

This was an incredible match to witness because it was impossible to imagine the result. Rafael Nadal was rusty and did not play well at all, but nothing should be taken away from the retiring 34-year-old Berrer. He has never posted an above .500 record on the main tour, and he’s never broken into the top 40, but the aggressive, serve-and-volley style German put up a masterpiece of a performance against the world No. 2 Nadal, playing the match of his life at 34. The first set was a blowout, as Berrer had no weapons to trouble Nadal with and was being pushed back by the Spaniard, but in the second and third sets he adopted a new aggressive mindset, changing his gameplan and gambling it all on putting pressure on Nadal by coming forward. To the shock of almost everyone, even Berrer himself, as he readily admitted in the post-match interview, it paid off. He pounced on the opportunities Nadal gave him to break to pull off a three-set comeback for the best win of his career. Everyone felt he would choke when put under pressure in the third set while up a break, but it was Nadal who blinked, and his game was far too sloppy to win. This is an encounter that was exciting to watch if you’re a fan of underdogs.

Match of the month: Auckland R1: Michael Venus d. Alejandro Gonzalez 5-7 6-3 7-6(7)

Michael Venus, a former college tennis standout from LSU, won his first career ATP main draw match over Colombian Alejandro Gonzalez in front of his home fans. Rather than being a pushover local wild card, Venus, who has never been ranked in the top 250 and is already 27 years old, steadily built momentum against the defensively skilled but relatively weaponless Gonzalez, who much prefers clay. They battled it out for a pair of sets, with Gonzalez generally being the favorite throughout, and Venus facing more pressure on his own serve, since he was struggling to get first serves in. After splitting sets, the match got much more interesting and entertaining as the crowd started to rally behind the clutch play of Venus, and it began to make it feel like it was going to be a magical night for the Kiwi.

Gonzalez was up a break in the third set, and Venus had his chances as well. But every time Gonzalez would get ahead, he could not finish the match off. Venus forced a third-set tiebreak and saved multiple match points before relying on his serve to finally take it 9-7 when he was given the chance. Venus wore down Gonzalez by late in the third set, utilizing angles to stretch him around the court. That aggressive approach, along with a feathery touch at the net, was enough to pull him through, even though he was an underdog until his own match point. This match goes to show non-household names can still produce classic and highly entertaining tennis.