The wonderful world of Oz isn’t so wonderful if you are a tennis fan. The Open last week was marred on Day One by a tsumani of a scandal that threatened to drench the sport. That it has sort of dried up so swiftly is certainly an enigma wrapped in a mystery. But that said, the caprice of fate is still holding forth at the event. The fourth person to be injured in the stands this year was Aussie player Sam Groth’s mother who tripped and tumbled down the steps even as her son and Lleyton Hewitt (playing his last Grand Slam) were taking on Vasek Pospisil (Canada) and Jack Sock (USA). The game was held up over 20 minutes as a worried son looked on. Mom was resuscitated, the game got going again but the concentration was shattered and the latter moved smoothly into the next round.

Just a day earlier Nigel Sears, coach of tennis star Ana Ivanovic and also the father-in-law of Andy Murray, collapsed inside the Rod Laver Arena and was taken away on a stretcher, holding up her match for 50 minutes. Ana was then up a set and leading 2-0 and coasting but the shock of seeing Nigel fall splintered her game and she went down tamely to Madison Keys. This was the second trauma for her because in Round Two her game against Anastasija Sevastova was held up 30 minutes after a spectator fell down the stairs.

When you are on the field of play and something untoward occurs, especially bad news, either you get pumped up and raise your game a notch or you fall about. Andy Murray has been more concerned about his wife Kim giving birth any day now and when Nigel had an unexpected episode Andy was visibly distraught. He hung in there and won his match but such incidents do impact on one’s performance.

To my mind the most dramatic example of this ‘show must go on’ sentiment was the famous Pete Sampras match against Jim Courier in the 1995 Australian Open. Two sets down and trailing he had been badly shaken after hearing his coach and friend Tim Gullikson had been medevaced home following a dizzy spell that underscored his cardiac condition. It looked as if Pete would just give it up and legend has it that his girlfriend Delaina Mulcahy, mouthed the words, “Come on,honey, get in there.” At two sets all, a fan yelled, “Do it for Tim, Pete,’ and the crowd roared and a dazed Pete wept in his towel and just froze and played with the racquet strings. It was at that moment Jim said, “You okay, Pete, we can continue this tomorrow.” Later Courier would explain that he had realized that Sampras was hurting real bad and winning the game suddenly became secondary. Pete won the fifth and then sobbed uncontrollably as 15,000 spectators gave him a standing ovation.

A more cruel drama was the stabbing of Monica Seles in Hamburg by a deranged Gunter Parche, a man so obsessed that he destroyed Monica’s career with his manic action. It is a testament to her courage that two years later she returned to the circuit but few are aware that her attacker was found mentally unstable and so, never jailed. This is why Monica never sets foot in Germany and the spectre of that day rides her shoulders every time she steps on to the court.

Does anyone recall the gutsy Arthur Ashe playing Ilie Nastase at the Masters in 1975? It was in Stockholm and Arthur was ahead and Nasty was being just that, swearing and yelling at every point. Ashe walked off saying he’d rather lose his match than his self respect. Next day, the tournament committee decided to hand the match to him rather than sanctify bad behavior.