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Novak Djokovic has never done it. Neither has Rafa. Nor Roger.
But Serena has done it six times, while her sister Venus and Andy Murray have both done it twice — and Alex de Minaur has a shot of doing it over the next fortnight.
This is not a riddle, but is something of a trick question.
It is, of course, the number of "home" grand slam titles each player has won.
It is a trick question because, of those six players, only three have ever had a chance of winning their home grand slam given there are only four grand slams: the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open.
Grand slam titles are the hardest tournaments of all to win: Seven matches over two weeks against the best of the best, with the eyes of the world on you.
And, if you're at home, there is the added pressure of delivering in front of a home crowd.
"To win a home grand slam is incredibly difficult," Australian Open director Craig Tiley says in Australia's Open, the recent ABC Documentary.
"The expectation of the crowd creates a different pressure on the player and you've really got to compartmentalise that thinking when you're out there competing.
"It's a very, very difficult thing to do."
From an Australian perspective, with one win in the main singles draw since 1978, that feeling is understandable.
But with de Minaur's stellar start to the season — securing wins over top-10 players Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, Alexander Zverev and Carlos Alcaraz — raising hopes of a first men's singles champion in 48 years, should Australians jump on the bandwagon?
"My level is in a good spot coming into Melbourne," de Minaur said last week.
"I've had a good 2024. It's been very good to me, so hopefully I can keep it going.
'"I'm pushing myself every day and hopefully the sky's the limit."
Well, contrary to popular belief, the stats say that de Minaur's best chance of grand slam success could be at his home slam.
The numbers
Let's not beat around the bush. Winning a grand slam at all is really, really hard.
But there are, of course, instances where players have won several.
So if one is to accept that it is harder to win your home grand slam than any other, then it would make sense that any player who is Australian, French, British or American who has won multiple grand slam titles (three or more), less than a quarter of them would be at their home slam.
And yet, of all the three-time or more grand slam winners in the open era from those countries — there have been 22 — just six have won less than 25 per cent of their grand slams on home soil (or clay, or plexicushion).
Of those 22, five — Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Ken Rosewall and Andy Murray — won more slams at home than at the other three tournaments combined.
Only two players who have won more than three grand slams singles titles in the open era, Jim Courier and Jennifer Capriati, failed to win one at home.
Well that's fine, but perhaps after winning one slam, having broken the duck it does become easier to win a gruelling two-week tournament.
So what about the one-hit-wonders? Well, in the open era, there have been 26 men and 27 women who have won a solitary grand slam.
Of those players, eight men and 10 women had a "home" grand slam and, of those, just three men — Mark Edmondson (AUS), Yannick Noah (FRA) and Andy Roddick (USA) — and four women — Kerry Melville Reid (AUS), Chris O'Neil (AUS), Sloane Stephens (USA) and Coco Gauff (USA) — won at home.
This suggests that breaking your duck could be easier away from home, and then could lead to winning more titles in familiar surrounds.
That's a stat which also matches with the multiple slam winners: Just eight of the 22 possible players (Sampras, Laver*, McEnroe, Rosewall*, Ashe, Serena, Court* and Davenport) won their first slam on home soil, with Ash Barty among the others who won overseas before returning home for more success.
*Won their first slam prior to the open era.
Roddick is an interesting example in that his game, principally his massive serve, was more suited to the grass courts of Wimbledon, where he made three finals (losing each one to Roger Federer) but he got his break at the 2003 US Open in what was something of a tournament between eras.
Frenchman Yannick Noah, however, only progressed past the quarterfinals at one other grand slam (reaching the 1990 Australian Open semis), excelling instead on his favourite surface, clay, on which he won 12 of his 23 career singles titles — meaning his 1983 French Open triumph, on the only clay-court slam, was likely his best chance anyway.
Likewise, all six of Mark Edmondson's career singles titles came on grass, including his come-from-the-clouds triumph at the 1976 Australian Open when he was ranked 212th in the world, making him the lowest-ranked grand slam singles winner since ratings were introduced in 1973.
Although no doubt hopelessly flawed as a method of analysis, overall numbers of grand slam titles won by Australian, French, British or Americans also tells a story.
In the open era, 15.45 per cent of Australian Open men's and women's singles titles have been won by Australians.
However, in total, just 9.91 per cent (44) of the 444 open grand slam singles championships have been won by Australians.
Those numbers are repeated — albeit on a much smaller scale — by French winners at Roland Garros and British winners at Wimbledon and, on a far bigger scale, by American winners at the US Open.
Last home men's champion | Last men's grand slam winner | Last home women's champion | Last women's grand slam winner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Aus Open | 1976 (Mark Edmondson) | 2002 (Lleyton Hewitt, Wimbledon) | 2022 (Ash Barty) | 2022 (Ash Barty, Aus) |
French Open | 1983 (Yannick Noah) | 1983 (Yannick Noah, French) | 1967 (Françoise Dürr) | 2013 (Marion Bartoli, Wimbledon) |
Wimbledon | 2016 (Andy Murray) | 2016 (Andy Murray, Wimbledon) | 1977 (Virginia Wade) | 2021 (Emma Raducanu, US) |
US Open | 2003 (Andy Roddick) | 2003 (Andy Roddick, US) | 2023 (Coco Gauff) | 2023 (Coco Gauff, US) |
Ah, I hear you say, but when Australians regularly won the Australian Open, it was mostly Australians who took part. And that's true.
In the first decade or so of the open era at the Australian Open, around 58 per cent of the men's singles field were Australian and 70 per cent of the women's — including in 1970 when 90 per cent of the 43-strong women's draw was made up of home players.
The quality of those fields too, left a lot to be desired, with some top stars not travelling.
For reference, in the last decade the average number of Aussies in the draw has been eight per cent for the men's draw and under six per cent for the women's.
Home support should be a positive, right?
Of course. De Minaur has been very clear in his hopes for a positive atmosphere at his matches.
And, on the other side of the coin, it can be very hostile for opposition players, just ask Liam Broady.
The British qualifier drew Nick Kyrgios in the first round of the 2022 Australian Open — and didn't he know it.
"The crowd were massively revved up the second I got out there," he remembers in Australia's Open.
"Instant boos, being heckled. It was crazy.
"It was like walking into a lion's den.
"It's very difficult to block that out and to be able to focus on the tennis."
Kyrgios won in straight sets, setting up a second-round match against second seed Daniil Medvedev, who was unimpressed with how the crowd behaved.
Medvedev, who has often enjoyed battles with the crowd at Flushing Meadows as well as at Melbourne Park, still won the match.
But there is no doubt that Kyrgios benefited from what he called "a zoo" of an atmosphere that culminated in him winning the men's doubles with Thanasi Kokkinakis.
But, as Rennae Stubbs explained, that is not always a good thing for the modern gladiators, who go head-to-head inside a colosseum of noise in which only they control their destiny.
"It's like solitary confinement, being on a tennis court by yourself," she said.
"It's just so mind-blowingly difficult."
Pat Cash
One player who would agree that it is harder to win at home is 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash.
Cash was desperate to win his home tournament, but explained in Australia's Open that the pressure would get to him before he even stepped on court.
"It's not easy to win your home tournament. The expectations, you have it on yourself," Cash said.
"The attention can get overwhelming. There's absolutely no doubt about it and often, you don't perform your best.
"I did feel this pressure, this tension, every time I arrived back in Australia.
"And I put enough pressure on myself, believe me, more than I should have. Way more than I should have.
"So to have that extra expectation was crippling at times. It really was."
Cash played the Australian Open 11 times in his career.
Twice he made the final: In 1987 on grass at Kooyong and in 1988 on the hard courts of the then-new Flinders Park.
Twice he lost to galvanised Swedes: First Stefan Edberg and then, in an epic, to Mats Wilander.
"When I heard the crowd go, 'Oh!' when you missed a shot, I heard them going, in my head, I used to hear them going, 'You idiot.' I heard the criticism," Cash remembers.
"Mats held to win the title and absolutely broke my heart.
"When you lose, it's horrendously deflating, horrendously deflating.
"I damn well came close, but every time I walk into Melbourne Park, you know, and I see the winners still it stings. I got to say it stings every time I come into Melbourne Park."
There can only be one winner
Of course, none of this accounts for how brilliant a player needs to be to win seven-straight matches at the highest level.
In this era of GOAT contenders, it's easy to forget just how hard it is to win a single grand slam title, let alone multiple ones.
Since 2004 for example, all but 14 of the 79 men's grand slam singles titles have been won by just three men: Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.
There's a touch more variety on the women's side, but Serena won 17 titles in the same time frame, with three others won by her sister Venus — that's over a quarter of all slams in that period won by members of the same family.
In short, outside of those four key players, it's tough to reach the top.
From an Australian perspective, there have been genuine contenders.
Instead of Pat Cash you could also name Sam Stosur. Lleyton Hewitt. Pat Rafter. All great players, grand slam winners, all who were unable to get over the line at their home slam.
The truth is, far more top-ranked Australian players in recent years have not won the Australian Open than have.
Throughout the late 90s and into the early 2000s, Australia enjoyed at least one man in the ATP top 10 rankings, with Lleyton Hewitt ranked number one for 2001 and 2002.
In that time he won two grand slam titles, the US Open and Wimbledon, and was top seed at the Australian Open in 2002 and 2003.
On both occasions he was knocked out in the first week.
Stosur too won a grand slam in the USA, but at her home slam she lost as many singles matches as she has won (20).
Even Barty missed out twice despite being top seed for the Australian Open, winning at the third time of asking with the number one beside her name.
Rafter won two US Open titles, got to the Wimbledon final twice, but never got past the fourth round at the Australian Open in his first 10 attempts until his final appearance in 2001, when he reached the semifinal, losing to Andre Agassi.
It's not a curse particular to Australians, though.
Tim Henman suffered a Cash-like defeat in the three-day long semifinal of the 2001 Wimbledon championships to Goran Ivanišević.
Henman was on top against the Croatian, leading 5-7, 7-6, 6-0, 2-1 when darkness came and the match was delayed for the first time, going on to lose in five sets.
Cash too was on top against Wilander, only for the rain to come and, during a short delay to close the roof, allow the momentum to swing back to the Swedish legend.
The point is, a lot has to go right for anyone to win a slam.
When the pressure really comes on, the only numbers that matter are the ones on the scoreboard.
Follow the Australian Open with ABC Grandstand, which will be calling the action via the ABC Listen app and abc.net.au/sport, while ABC Sport online will be running a blog of all the action from Melbourne Park.
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