Talking Points: Interviews with the 1 Point Slam's True Stars
On-court conversations with 1 Point Slam finalist Joanna Garland and champion Jordan Smith after their life-changing night.
MELBOURNE, Australia — After I spent a year proselytizing about its greatness, the second edition of the 1 Point Slam earned many converts on Wednesday night in Melbourne.
The top stars in tennis were both shining and stumbling in the no-margin-for-error format, as expected, with the massive investment after last year’s sleeper hit sideshow proving to be pay off hugely.
The whole thing was great—if padded with a bit too much chatter and prattling by the on-court host sometimes, so you can skip ahead as you watch the drama unfold. [And don’t scroll past the video if you don’t want spoilers.]
Though Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Coco Gauff were the marquee attractions used to market the night—though the biggest cheers were for Taiwanese popstar Jay Chou, who had brought at least a thousand fans who were unambiguously only there to see him—it was the lesser-known names who locked in and shone brightest.
On what was a great night for the WTA cohort overall—with six of the eight quarterfinalists being WTA players, and many top women besting top men in extended rallies—the breakout star was Joanna Garland, a Taiwanese star of not-quite-Jay-Chou levels of pop culture prominence before this night.
Garland, the WTA No. 117 who had made it through the 1 Point Slam’s pre-qualifying rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday after losing her first round match in women’s qualifying, beat Varvara Lepchenko, Alexander Zverev, Nick Kyrgios, Maria Sakkari, and Donna Vekic to reach the final for a shot at one point that would’ve more-than-doubled her career’s on-court earnings.
But after winning nine points in a row to make it tantalizingly close, Garland lost to one of the underdog amateurs that Tennis Australia had hoped to foreground: after more than 5,000 players participated in a regional qualifying event, Jordan Smith won 11 points in a row in club and statewide competitions in New South Wales to reach the big night.
The 29-year-old then, against the odds, racked his total up to 17 points in a row inside Rod Laver Arena to become the shock champion and win A$1,000,000, more than 100x what he’d won in his previous attempts at professional tennis.
If you assume he had a 50-50 chance of winning each point, Smith had a 1-in-131,072 chance of winning 17 points in a row; this really did feel like some crazy sort of destiny.
After the life-changing night for both of them, I was lucky to get to be the lone reporter to interview both Garland and Smith on the court of Rod Laver Arena in the afterglow of their moment. I am delighted to bring those great chats to Bounces subscribers, below the paywall (as well as a bonus interview with Smith’s childhood friend Jordan Thompson, who was down there to celebrate with the rest of Smith’s crew).
To read (and listen to audio) of Garland, Smith, and Thompson—and also get access to all the coverage to come from the main event of the Australian Open—please subscribe to Bounces!
