Reuters
Andrew Baker of the Telegraph ranks, in descending order, the Top 10:
1969 men’s final: Rod Laver beats Andres Gimeno to embark en route to his second Grand Slam....
1982 women’s final: Chris Evert-Lloyd triumphs over Martina Navratilova in a see-saw contest....
1987 men’s final: ...with Stefan Edberg defeating local hero Pat Cash over five punishing sets.
1995 men’s quarter-final: Pete Sampras, devastated by the recent collapse of his coach Tim Gullikson with the onset of what would prove to be fatal cancer, lost the first two sets to his compatriot Jim Courier....
1996 women’s quarter-final: Chanda Rubin of the United States defeated Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 16-14 in the third set of a match that tested both players to the limit in tortuous heat....
2000 men’s semi-final: “Pistol Pete” Sampras fired down 37 aces, but Andre Agassi, arguably the best serve-returner of all time, wore him down to become the first player since Laver in 1969 to make four Grand Slam finals in a season....
2002 women’s final: Jennifer Capriati won her third Grand Slam title with an extraordinary comeback performance against Martina Hingis....
2003 men’s quarter-final (photo above): It took five sets and five hours for Andy Roddick to defeat Morocco’s Younes el Aynaoui in the longest match the Australian Open had seen since the introduction of the tie-break....
2004 men’s third round: Melbourne was never a particularly happy hunting ground for Tim Henman, but he must have felt he was in with a great chance of progressing to the last 16 when, having led by two sets to love, he then had a 4-1 advantage in the fifth set against Guillermo Canas....
2006 men’s semi-final: This contest between Marat Safin and Roger Federer is regularly cited as the finest ever to have been seen on the hard courts of Melbourne....
Make sure to read his full descriptions at the link above. I didn't see all these matches, so I can't argue with the matches on the list. But the 2003 quarterfinal is the best all-around tennis experience I've ever witnessed.
Not only was the tennis superb, but the atmosphere, the electricity, the sportsmanship, the spirituality of it all.
Unforgettable.
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