Australian Open – Farewells and Semifinals

It’s time to once again bid adieu to my favorite player, Justine Henin.  She announced her retirement today due to her injured elbow.  I love her tennis, but I can’t say that I was surprised or upset by this announcement.  She just wasn’t fully here after her return.  While I loved seeing her smile more, her tennis wasn’t quite the same.  It didn’t inspire the same awe anymore.  In some ways, I feel like the attempted comeback diminished her legacy a little, because what happens more recently is often what is better remembered–particularly since there will be the comparison between her comeback and Kim Clijsters’.

Australian Open – The Quarterfinals

And then there were 8…it’s the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, and the fields have been significantly cut down.  Actually, there are only 7 left on the women’s side as I write this–one quarterfinal has already been decided.

Australian Open – Days 6 into 7

A few thoughts about recent events at the Aussie, mostly from days 6 & 7, but there might be some day 5 thoughts in there too.

Australian Open 2011 – Day 4

All the best matches happen while I’m sleeping. Perhaps I should start wintering in Melbourne.  You know, if I were rich rather than a librarian.

 

Australian Open – Day 3

Day 3 was a day of long matches, which usually indicates some pretty brilliant tennis.

Australian Open – Days 2 into 3

It has certainly been a long time since I’ve written about tennis.  While I continued to watch avidly, there was a period of time where I wasn’t quite as engaged.  I think it was in part due to Justine Henin’s retirement, and also because I wasn’t quite willing to admit to myself how much I liked Rafael Nadal.  Without a champion to back (I love all my underdogs, but a Slam victory really keeps the fires burning bright), I lost a bit of my passion.

However, at least for today, it is back!

Told ya so…

Remember last July when I kept raving about a young Japanese tennis player named Nishikori Kei? Well, he just won the Delray Beach tournament–taking out James Blake in the final. See? I know what I’m talking about (at least some of the time.) Here’s hoping he’ll continue with some momentum, and maybe even come back to the Indy Championships again this year. I want another chance to watch him.

Australian Open 2008 – Day…whatever

So, things are heating up, and I’m getting pretty damn disappointed, personally.  While Jankovic’s victory over Serena made me happy, Sharapova’s victory over Justine did NOT.  I didn’t get to see the match, but looking at the scoreline, Justine came out even worse than Serena.  That said, Justine hadn’t really played well all tournament, and I’d rather she not win when she isn’t in top form (much like the Colts losing to the Chargers didn’t bother me, because they didn’t deserve a victory with as poorly as they played.)  My dream of her getting a Golden Slam this year are gone.  There’s something about the Australian Open that just doesn’t seem to work well for her.

And now that I think about her, I realize I dreamed about her last night.  I’ve dealt with the Rochus brothers in dreams a lot, but that’s the first time I dreamed of Justine.  It was nice, we hung out, and she was surprised I knew who she was, and I was trying not to seem  too much like a rampant fangirl.

Anyway, back to reality.  Tonight Venus will take on the other Serb, Ana Ivanovic, and Hantuchova will take on Radwanska.  I think the Vensu-Ana match will be good, although I’m not sure who will win.  Venus might come out extra strong after Serena’s loss, or she might bow out meekly like little sis.  As for the other match, who knows.  Hantuchova likes to make it difficult for herself, and Radwanska has proven she can beat anyone in the top 10, so Hantuchova certainly isn’t an unsurmountable challenge for her.

On the men’s side of things, two semi-finalists have been selected.  Rafa took out Jarko Nieminen in a match with a great first set that seemed to slide.  And the other match?  The Frenchman that came out of nowhere, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga defeated Mikhail Youzhny!  The kid’s got guts, and I think he stands a real shot against Nadal in the semis.

The other two matchups that haven’t yet been played will also be pretty damn good, I think.  While I usually question Blake’s mental strength (he’s melted down a few too many times for me to have confidence in him currently), he has played competitively against Roger before.  It seems he paid attention to what Tipsarevic did to nearly take down Federer, and if he can come out strong and really believe in himself, we might have another major upset in the quarterfinals.

I’m not sure how exciting the Ferrer versus Djokovic match will be.  What am I saying?  Just because most Americans don’t know who Ferrer is (and only know Djokovic because of his Maria impression that was all over Yahoo! the other day) doesn’t mean he isn’t a joy to watch.  Both of them are.  I think Djokovic might have a bit of an edge in way of skill, but Ferrer has a lot of his own, plus solid energy and a great personality.  While I don’t really have a favorite between the two, and in a sense don’t care who wins, I do think it will be a good match to watch if both men come out firing on all cylinders.

With that, I think it’s time I do a bit of reading to figure out WTHIGOW Justine.

Australian Open 2008 – Days 5 & 6

I’m a little behind due to a busy Friday schedule, not to mention rung out from watching the emotional roller coaster that was the Hewitt vs Baghdatis much, so I’ll combine both days and and probably be brief.

Day 5:

Women hold to form fairly well, except Mauresmo falls to Aussie young heroine Dellacqua.  Roddick and Fish both go down in emotional matches, Roddicks stretching a long fifth set.  Frenchmen continue moving forward: Simon falls to Nadal as was expected, but Gasquet, Tsonga, and Mathieu all make it through to the fourth round.  Justine’s serve is continuing to give her fits, but she managed to hold out.  Hsieh becomes the first player from Chinese Taipei to make it to the fourth round of a Slam.

Day 6:

Holy moly!!  I’m still trying to recover from this session.  There were upsets, there were extremely long dramatic matches galore–and all of that from an extremely shortened session due to rain delays!

The upsets: Kuznetsova was taken out by Radwanska (Safina lookalike).  Sveta just wasn’t perfectly on her game, and Agnieszka really took it to her.  Chakvetadze was also upset, her by compatriot Kirilenko.  The first set was fantastic with no breaks of serve.  While technically it was an ‘upset,’ I really felt Kirilenko had a good chance of winning.  Her ranking has fallen a bit, but she’s certainly nearly Chakvetadze’s level.   On the men’s side, the upset was Fernando Gonzalez.  Last year he made it to the final, this year he bowed out to up and coming Croatian player Marin Cilic.

The long and dramatic: Federer finally got pushed!  Janko Tipsarevic pushed him to a 5th set where Federer pulled out a victory 10-8 in 4h 27m.  Federer’s really not used to having to work that hard, so it will be interesting to see what he’s got left in the tank.  Blake versus Grosjean was also a classic.  Grosjean came out firing on all cylinders while Blake looked like he’d rather be anywhere but on the tennis court.  Alas, Grosjean’s fantastic play in the first two sets came with a steep price: he ran out of gas.  He actually was just a few points from the match in the fourth set before losing in five.  That’s two five-set wins for Blake now–both against French veterans.  Hmm…

The final long and dramatic match was the one I was looking forward to the most and didn’t think I would get to see it at all.  Imagine my surprise when I flipped on the television this morning (just in case) to find that the Baghdatis-Hewitt match was still in the second set!  Now that was an amazing match.  Hewitt’s fire, Baghdatis’ joy… I was so hoping Baghdatis would win, particularly coming back from 1-5 down to force a fifth set, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  Regardless, it was my favorite match of the tournament thus far.  It had the latest start time (just before midnight) and latest finish time (around 4:30 a.m.) of any match at a Slam.  (I don’t think that’s limited to just the Australian Open).  Baghdatis is now 5-1 in five set matches at the Aussie Open.  Yeah, that was his very first five-set loss there.

Also played: Venus defeated Sania Mirza, Ivanovic destroyed Srebotnik, Berdych rolled over Monaco, and Djokovic stopped Querrey’s run.

Day 7 preview:

There’s going to be a lot of good tennis on day 7 given how many matches had to be shoved back a day due to the rain on Saturday.  First up with be Nalbandian versus Fererro, which I can’t wait to see.  The one problem with it being first on Laver?  I’m more than a bit worried that it’ll go long and wreak havoc on the scheduling for the main stadium.  Particularly since the battle of Frenchmen, Tsonga versus Gasquet, follows it up.  That could go five as well.  Vaidisova versus Serena Williams (the final day match on Laver) could prove long and interesting as well.  I’ve picked Vaidisova to win, but who knows…

Mathieu versus Nadal will probably shape up to be interesting, as will Dementieva (if she can keeps her wits about her) against Sharapova. Davydenko-Youzhny could be…weird, actually.  I’m just not sure how that one will turn out.  Nieminen versus Kohlschreiber could feature some pretty fantastic play as well.

Anyway, it’s been a great past few days of tennis, and the upcoming Sunday matches will probably continue that trend.

Australian Open 2008 – Day 4

Well, Day 4 seemed to bring us some of the best drama and entertaining matches thus far in the tournament. It also brought some extremely sloppy play from a few excellent players. Case in point, Venus William’s horrific match against Camille Pin. That made Jankovic’s first round match look clean. Kuznetsova was also having a tough time against Pironkova at the same time, but that had as much to do with Pironkova’s ability to play big matches (even if she doesn’t make it very far in the draw usually) as it did with Kuznetsova playing slightly sub-par tennis (which I don’t think she was really doing at any point.)

Meanwhile, the Santoro-Federer match up wasn’t even close, but it was still incredibly fun to watch. Santoro is as much a showman as a tennis player, and Roger was playing tennis I’ve never seen before. He was actually working hard, and even slipped in some flair of his own, including a Sampras-esque jumping overhead in the final game of the match. Santoro made him wait before he served again because he wanted to see the replay on the big screen. How fun! Still, it wasn’t their best match up this time. It seems Federer has become possibly the first player to really figure out the Magician. Damn, he really is that good, isn’t he?

The true drama of the night unfolded in the match up between my two favorite tennis players, Marat Safin and Marcos Baghdatis. They were the Laver night match, and they took it to 5 sets before Baghdatis pulled it out. I only got to see the last one and a half sets (it was still on live when I woke up!) but it was fun to see. I was of course disappointed that Safin lost (simply because I went nuts filling out my draw and had him winning the tournament), but Baghdatis seemed to really want it more in that last set. I think Safin used up all he had to get it to the fifth, and mentally didn’t have anymore to give. Still, I’m happy with the result. I think Baghdatis could go quite far, and he’s so much fun to watch. Especially his smile, it’s one of the prettiest ones I’ve ever seen. The pure joy he seems to have for the game is so wonderful. I think that’s why I like players like him and Santoro so much–they seem to truly love what they’re doing, and wear their hearts on their sleeves.

As for the Frenchmen, since I’ve been mentioning them so much, Grosjean was the only one to make it to the third wound on the top half of the draw. Still, given that he’s joining 5 compatriots there, I’m sure he’s pretty happy. Especially since he’s a 5-set king, and he’ll be playing Blake, who’s only won one 5-set match (against Santoro at the U.S. Open, that was FANTASTIC, too bad Santoro wasn’t the victor though.)

U.S. men are also doing well. Blake, Querrey, and Spadea all made it to the third round last night. I was expecting Blake to do well, and I thought Querrey might have some chances too, but Spadea really came out of nowhere to me.

And now some Day 5 thoughts:

Henin vs Schiavone could be a fun match up. It should give Justine her first challenge at the Open, but the chance of an upset is slim to none. She’s just too good.

Jankovic vs Razzano, on the other hand, could be a close match. If Razzano shows up mentally and physically, she could really push Jankovic, especially given how shaky Jankovic has been recently.

Simon vs Nadal doesn’t really scream “watch me!” but I think there’s potential it could be interesting, depending on how Nadal’s feeling. The hard courts just really don’t seem to agree with him, and given how this surface seems to be on knees, he might have some problems.

I’m looking forward to Vaidisova vs Sugiyama, personally. While Vaidisova is clearly the better player at this point in time, Sugiyama’s a veteran and will run down just about every single ball. She’s a total grinder, and Vaidisova might find herself having some trouble playing against a wall like her.

Sharapova, Serena, and Roddick are also playing, amongst others. I probably won’t be tuning into their matches though: not a big fan of any member of that trio, and they aren’t playing favorites either.