No Roger or Serena: Australian Open starts minus 2 big stars

By HOWARD FENDRICH
AP Tennis Writer

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The 2023 edition of the Australian Open is not the first Grand Slam tournament to be contested without Roger Federer or Serena Williams, of course. That was the case at the 2022 edition of the Australian Open, too, to name just one example. What is different now is that this marks the first major tournament since the two larger-than-the-game, larger-than-life figures, both 41 years old, and with a combined 43 Slam singles championships and years’ worth of weeks at No. 1 in the rankings, announced they would be retiring. So while in years past, one absence or another was met with shrugs, there is a concreteness about it all now.