The 2009 Aussie Open is shaping up as the comeback Slam. The list of players emerging from unfathomable absences, drug busts, body casts and unfortunate life circumstances is staggering. Even players not in the draw here are on the comeback trail.

Kimiko Date-Krumm, 38, came a hair from upsetting 25^th-seeded Kaia Kanepi in the first round -- a mere 13 years since the former top-5 player from Japan hung up her rackets. Sesil Karatantcheva moved into round two Tuesday in her first Grand Slam since returning from a two-year ban for doping. Taylor Dent missed more than two years following two surgeries on his back, a body cast down to his knees and months in bed. The former top-25 player, who doctors gave a 20% chance of ever playing again, pushed fellow American Amir Delic to five sets before succumbing, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Jelena Dokic beat Tamira Paszek in her opener and shed tears later in her press conference. The former Wimbledon semifinalist and fourth-ranked player had endured one of the most violent and dysfunctional tennis families ever but climbed her way back into the Aussie Open by playing lower-tier events and then winning a wild card tournament for Australian players.

“It’s really a miracle for me, really emotional to win,” said Dokic, 25, who is estranged from her notorious father, Damir, and mending things with her mother. “What I had to go through, it’s really great to have this win. I don’t think a lot of people know what it means to me …”

Why bother after going through so much? A common thread seems to be the emptiness that cannot be filled from anything else. “I was wracking my brain thinking of stuff I wanted to do, and honestly nothing gave me the fire in my belly like competing and playing professional tennis,” Dent said of the eight months he was bedridden after his first surgery. “So I said if I get the chance I’m going to take it, and I’m going to try to be better than I was.”

Andrei Pavel, who like Dent got into the main draw with a protected ranking, had the same feeling as he spent time with his family and tried to recover from a dislodged vertebrae in his back that has hindered him for years.

“Just having so much time off, you go like, ‘Wow, that's a very nice life,” said the 34-year-old Romanian of the tennis circuit. “I just want to have it one more time.” Unfortunately for Pavel, the back acted up again in his match against Andy Murray Tuesday, and he was forced to retire in the second set. Permanent retirement could be next, he said later.

And speaking of comebacks, I ran into Joachim “Pim Pim” Johansson, the 2004 U.S. Open semifinalist, who is in the midst of his own return from the tennis dead. The 6-foot-6 Swede was wandering through the players’ restaurant with his pro golfer girlfriend looking fit and tan. Johansson told me that he had tried for three years to come back from a debilitating right (serving) shoulder injury and that he had all but given up a year ago and he started coaching junior players. He would not have surgery. But then he met Joan Alloza Rossello, Carlos Moya’s physiotherapist.

According to the 26-year-old, Rossello has been able to bring his shoulder back to life. He visited with Rossello in Moya’s native Mallorca a few months ago and then spent a month on the Spanish island with Rossello rehabbing. He’s taking it slow -- he played an exo in Brisbane last week -- and says he now has no pain. Operation Puerto, anyone? “The shoulder is good,” he said. “It’s strong enough and flexible enough to continue playing.”

Johansson, who played in the Stockholm tournament last fall (and beat Nicolas Mahut) will spend the next three weeks training in Australia (you’ll recall he has ties to this country after dating Lleyton Hewitt’s sister, Jaslyn, for four years). Then he will use his protected ranking (No. 155) and gradually make his return. “I didn’t stop playing because I didn’t want to,” said Johansson. “Joan gave me opportunity.”

Other tidbits:

I saw American Shenay Perry who is – shall we say it? – coming back from knee surgery. Perry, 24 and never one for many words, told me she’s training in Jupiter, Fla., where she’s based. When I asked her whom she was working with, she said: “Me, myself and I.”….American Wayne Odesnik, who lost to Mario Ancic in four sets Tuesday, is now working with the tandem of Grant Doyle and John Roddick, who has a training center in Austin. Doyle split with Sam Querrey at the end of last year….Christina McHale was crushed after coming so close. The 16-year-old high school junior, who won the USTA’s wild card playoff to get into the main draw, cramped in both legs in the third set against fellow wild card Jessica Moore of Australia but still managed to serve for the match at 5-3. She lost 1-6, 6-3, 9-7. A teary McHale said afterwards she had never cramped in her life and wasn’t fatigued in the 105-degree temperatures. “I was just like praying that it would stop,” she said of the cramping. “It was devastating. To lose a match to cramping…It’s something you can prevent from happening.”