Paris 2024: Golden duo: Aussies claim win from the clouds at Roland Garros
Australia has claimed just its second ever tennis gold medal with star duo Matt Ebden and John Peers taking out the men’s doubles at Roland Garros in an unexpected and tense tie-break victory.
Matt Ebden and John Peers have joined the Woodies as Australia’s only tennis Olympic gold medallists after their unseeded, unexpected and ultimately unstoppable run culminated in an excruciatingly tense and narrow victory over Americans Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram at Roland Garros.
Ebden and Peers triumphed 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7-1), 10-8. It finished in a match tiebreaker, the equivalent of football’s nerve-shredding penalty shootout. First to ten points, crowd going ballistic, Olympic gold medals to the winners.
You were so nervous you could barely breathe. Ebden and Peers hung tough, played tougher, joined Australia’s gold stampede in Paris
They roared in celebration, bumped chests, went somewhat bonkers in jubilation and relief.
And there was one little girl who was on the edge of her seat the whole way through. Crossed fingers and loud cheers, little Ellie Peers was living every point as her dad dis his best out on the clay.
It’s Peers’ second Olympic medal after he claimed bronze with Ash Barty at the Tokyo Games. That was handed to them on a platter. Novak Djokovic forfeited, probably petrified of Barty’s backhand. When the Australians were asked if it felt like a cheap way to get a medal they basically replied, are you kidding? Thanks for coming!
Ebden and Peers earned their gold the hard and best way. By eventually playing the lights out in front of an audience dominated by Americans and their Star Spangled Banners. The 36-year-old Australians know doubles like the backs of their hands. They were nervous from the outset and trailed by a set and a break.
Then came good. Serves kicked like mules on the Parisian dirt. They were all over the net like a couple of bright yellow op-shop suits. Olympic tennis was first played in 1896 and only Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, and now Ebden and Peers, have won gold for Australia.
“Super-happy and excited,” Ebden said. “It’s great when you work for things and make goals and they play out and you get the rewards. We came here to win. We’ve worked hard. I’m not going to lie, it was great to have the guarantee of a medal but there was one more to go and we wanted to win. That’s why we’re here.”
Four specialist doubles players indulged in the cat-and-mouse that characterises the format. Crossing at the net, dinking, lobbing, using every inch of the expanded court. Grand entertainment was heightened by the prestige of the prize on offer. It wasn’t their finest display by any stretch of the imagination. The enormity of the occasion seemed to spook them until the final stages. A couple of iron-willed, heartstopping tiebreaks were worth,well, their weight in gold medallions. “This is what we came here to do,” Peers said.
Ebden and Peers have ridden the rollercoaster of professional tennis. Both have spent time as the World No.1 doubles player. Both have won majors.
They’ve also had phases of struggles. “Be patient and try to enjoy all the ups and downs. The journey of it all,” Ebden said. “You get where you want to go in the end but it’s not always how you thought you’d get there.
You achieve your results but not always how you planned it or how you thought it would play out. If you trust yourself and work hard and trust the right people and invest in yourself, in the end, somehow and some way, things usually turn out pretty well.”
I WANT MY DAUGHTERS TO DREAM BIGH
See that sweetheart of a girl during the TV broadcast of the thriller of a men’s doubles final at the Paris Olympics? It was John Peers’s daughter, Ellie.
“She’s seven,” he grinned after joining his Perth mate Matt Ebden in beating Americans Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram for the gold medal at Roland Garros. “I’ve been getting some video sent back from her class at school. They got dressed up in green-and-gold day on Friday. The whole school sent Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy, oy, oy to us in a video. From the word go, she’s wanted a medal to take home. I probably think for show-and-tell but hopefully one day she can look back on these movements and it can hopefully inspire her do whatever she wants to do. Dream big and just know anything is possible when you put your mind to it.”
Ellie was shown crossing her fingers, putting her hands over her face and giving every sign, during an excruciatingly tense final breaker, of wanting nothing more in this world than Dad to become an Olympic champion. All’s well that ended jubilantly, well, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/1), 10-8, victory going to a couple of blokes who live on the same street, whose children are growing up together and whose wives are close friends.
“I know from a young age, looking up and watching all the Aussie athletes, it didn’t matter what the sport was – Olympics, Boxing Day Test, footy, I loved watching sport and you’d dream big and decide that’s what you want to do,” Peers said. “Hopefully I can instill a little bit of that into my girls. Hopefully they can dream big one day and know the sky’s the limit for them. They can do anything they put their mind to.”
Peers two daughters, Ellie and Harper, and Ebden’s two-year-old son, Harvey, joined their Dads on Court Philippe-Chatrier for some of the best hugs you’ll ever see. Ebden said of the mateship between the families: “They were at Harvey’s birthday party in February. Our wives are friends. My little boy loves playing with Harper and Ellie. A few months ago I started thinking about this. Something weird is going on. It’s a bit strange we live just down the road from each other. Our wives are friends. Our kids are friends. We’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve played together. Some miracle work has happened there. Somehow now we’ve both got a gold medal for our streets and suburbs back home in Australia.”
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