The early rounds of a Grand Slam tournament are special not for the show court matches in which favorites usually dismiss underdogs with casual ease. In the first week of a major, the best seats belong to the tennis diehards who seek out the side courts where memories are made.

On day one of the Australian Open, two tennis journeymen created some fireworks away from the TV cameras, as Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller outlasted No. 27 seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain in five dramatic sets. Shattering the previous record for the longest Australian Open match of all time, Muller and Lopez traded blows for 5 hours and 34 minutes in withering afternoon heat before Muller prevailed, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 4-6, 16-14. The match reminded tennis aficionados why the year’s four major tournaments rightfully possess a special amount of stature.

It’s worth considering the plight of the tennis professional who is good enough to reach slams, but not good enough to dominate them. Tennis players–it should be remembered–have performed incredibly well to merely reach the main draw of a Grand Slam event. In a larger context, it’s an amazing accomplishment to be one of just 128 men or women privileged enough to compete for big dollars. If you’re in a slam, you’re better than 99 percent of the tennis players on the planet.

Once the slams get underway, however, the landscape shifts, and the emotional tenor of the event changes for the participants involved. While it’s undeniably a thrill to enter a Grand Slam event for the very first time, no man or woman who breaks into the big leagues wants to falter in the spotlight. The few hundred people gifted enough to partake in the world’s greatest tournaments are playing for their professional identities.

Without a consistent Grand Slam paycheck, tennis professionals will find it hard to make a really good living on the tour. With all the air travel, medical attention, and equipment needs (among other expenses) that are part of a tennis player’s budget, a track record of success has to be established before a profit can be made in the sport. No wins in Grand Slams mean no endorsements from shoe or racquet companies. No endorsements mean a higher personal budget. A higher budget means that each trans-oceanic plane flight, especially to a far-away place like Australia, has to produce a fat paycheck. If not, a player will fail to make a living in the sport. A severe injury will mean the almost-certain death of a career.

For every Roger Federer, there are thousands of players who had potential, but got ground down by the physical and financial demands of the tennis tour. Winning challenger events can only pay so many bills over an extended period of time. If a tennis player wants to feed his family on the basis of competitive excellence–and not a cushy job teaching tanned tourists how to hit a ball–he has to win at least a match or two at a Grand Slam.

Just getting into a slam event assures a player of nearly $20,000 (U.S.). A first-round win assures a player of at least $35,000, if not more. Skipping a few rounds, a player will net somewhere in the area of $180,000 if he or she can reach the quarterfinals. It’s not hard to see that good slam showings–which enable players to gain rankings points and qualify for upper-tier non-slam tournaments during the rest of the season–enable professionals to live off the game for a few precious years. In that small time window when their bodies are fit and their skills are sharp, the men and women who sacrificed their childhoods at a young age can reap the rewards of their labors.

This is the poignant backdrop that greets the first-round matches at Grand Slam tennis tournaments. The TV cameras might follow Jelena Jankovic or Novak Djokovic against an overmatched opponent, but the drama of the first week at a major comes from the brawls between two veterans on a lonely outer court. Men and women who have toiled more than triumphed are competing to make sure that their flight to Australia was worth the effort. Gilles Muller and Feliciano Lopez represent this kind of creature, the professional in search of a little more comfort than yesterday.

Lopez has actually had a little bit of success on the men’s tour. The Spaniard has reached the round of 16 of a slam on four prior occasions, which has taken some of the pressure away from the hard-serving lefty. Lopez isn’t quite on the margins of the tennis world, but a year without a single match win in a major tournament would push him that much closer to irrelevance.

For Muller, the road to tennis security has been far more taxing. Entering last year’s U.S. Open, the Luxembourg native hadn’t played in the previous four slams, and had never reached the fourth round at any slam. Despite joining the ATP Tour in 2001, Muller hadn’t yet cracked $1 million in career earnings. Several hundred thousand bucks sure beats minimum-wage work, but considering all the expenses a tennis player accumulates, a yearly take of roughly $115,000 only goes so far.

Imagine Muller’s delight, then, when he made a stunning run to the U.S. Open quarterfinals before bowing to Federer in three tough sets. In one event, Muller exceeded his normal annual income. Just under two weeks of terrific tennis made his career seem worthwhile again.

Today’s win over Lopez–in what amounted to an overtime match under brutal and oppressive conditions–provided a sweet dose of reaffirmation following a magical run in New York. Gilles Muller, fresh off a five-set win, reminds the dedicated tennis fan why this sport sings at the Grand Slam level of competition. The Federers and Nadals can have their moments when the semifinals and finals are played. In the first week of a slam, however, go to a side court. There will be another Muller-Lopez match just waiting to happen… and make you admire the many men and women who often labor in the shadows of this fascinating sport.