An Opportunity, Missed

Before Sunday's final at the Australian Open, a few commentators actually gave Andy Murray the advantage over Roger Federer.

It wasn't the craziest call -- the Scot had been playing some of the most impressive tennis of the tournament, only losing one set in the quarterfinals against Marin Cilic and scoring handily more winners than errors in each of his previous matches. The British media was beginning to get excited too, thinking this would be the year the country's seventy-four year Grand Slam drought would end. And Andy was certainly in better shape than he was during his last Major final, in which Federer demolished him at the 2008 U.S. Open. An upset wouldn't be the most surprising thing we've seen.

Murray had his opportunities, of course. After losing his opening service game he answered right back to even the score. He had a few more chances to take the lead in the first set when Federer was serving at two-all, but he failed to convert. His serve seemed to deteriorate and his attitude turned sour -- more than once cameras caught the look of irritation on his face, like a kid being grounded on Halloween.

By the time the second set ended, it looked like Murray was done for, but somehow he found the strength to regroup. He broke Roger in the sixth game of the third set after what was probably the best point of the match, one which brought both players to the net and saw Murray utilize his speed and light touch. He had the chance to serve for the set, but Federer roared back to force a tiebreak. There the Scot had three set points before Roger got his first championship point -- several minutes later, after chances for both men to take the set, it was 13-11 in favor of the all-time Slam champion, who takes home his record-smashing sixteenth Major title.

While Federer was clearly the dominant player on Sunday, I can't help but wonder what would have happened had Murray converted any of his five set points. It's not a common occurrence, but we've seen matches taken away from Roger, most notably at last year's U.S. Open -- if Andy had kept the game going, there's no telling what the next set or two would have brought. But as it stands, Andy Murray is oh-for-six in sets at Grand Slam finals.

Hey, you know who else hasn't won a set in the six she's played for the big game? Dinara Safina, who also can't seem to pull it together when it counts the most, has lost in straights to Ana Ivanovic, Serena Williams and Svetlana Kuznetsova. This would have been a great chance for Murray to distance himself from that comparison. That's not to say, of course, that neither will ever be able to come out on top -- but I don't think it's happening any time soon.

So the first Grand Slam of the new year is in the books, and not without results we should have expected all along. Sure there were blips along the way, and some scares that made you think the outcome wasn't inevitable, but at the end of a long fortnight, both Roger Federer and Serena Williams are once again crowned King and Queen -- the fifth time that's happened since the 2003 Wimbledon Championships.



And so the stage is set for the rest of the year -- and it's looking good for an exciting season!

The Importance of Defense: Part 3

Here's an interesting fact -- even though she's the active player with the most Grand Slam singles titles, until Saturday Serena Williams hadn't successfully defended a Major championship since Wimbledon, 2003. Amazing for someone who's been considered the woman to beat at the big games for most of the past decade.

That ended today as Williams took on a newly un-retired Justine Henin to win her fifth Australian Open trophy. The two had met thirteen times before with the American holding the slightest advantage, but surprisingly never at a Slam final. Between the two there are eighteen Major singles titles and 205 weeks ranked #1. When Henin left the sport twenty months ago, she was at the top of the game, today Serena is. Ironically, in the other tournaments they've played this year, both made and lost in those finals, so both were hungry.

Clearly this was the match-up we wanted to see.

It was an interesting final, though maybe not the best quality tennis we've seen in the last few months -- there were few points that made me gasp or cheer. Serena faced several break points in her first two service games, but Henin struggled to convert early. And just when it started to look like it would be a quick win for Williams, Justine went on a five-game, fifteen-point win streak ending the second to force the first three-set final since Amelie Mauresmo rallied to beat Henin for the 2006 Wimbledon trophy. Momentum was all on Henin's side, but it shifted right back to Serena when she broke her opponent in the third game of the last set. She gave it back the very next game. Neither player served particularly well, with both taking fewer than half of their second attempts. But after just about two hours it was Williams who held the big trophy in her arms.



By defending her title Serena ties the great Billie Jean King with twelve Slam singles titles, sixth on the all-time list, and does something to erase the last memory most might have of her. Henin, unfortunately, ends her campaign to be the second Belgian comeback story to take home a trophy at her first Major back in action, but does remind the world that she is still a force to contend with. With the match a long-time rivalry is reignited, and two world-class players who hadn't met in years kick off the 2010 tennis season with a bang.

It's certainly not the last time we'll see either Henin or Williams back in a championship match -- even facing each other. And the way they've played over the past two weeks suggests we could be in for some high-quality contests.

Let's hope they live up to the standard they've set!

Revenge Is Sweet

Way back in August Andy Murray was being hailed as the best chance to spoil Roger Federer's attempt at winning a sixth U.S. Open championship. That never happened, it turned out, because a youngster named Marin Cilic got in the way.

The unassuming Croat avenged a tough three-set loss in the fourth round of Roland Garros by stunning the heavy favorite in just about two hours. He won a solid eighty percent on first serves, fired off twice as many aces and broke his opponent five times while never seeding his own games. It was note the results Murray would have wanted.

A few months before that in Montreal, Roger Federer was ahead 5-1 in the third set of his quarterfinal match against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and his rival looked wholly defeated. But somehow the Frenchman was able to pull off the comeback of the year -- against the most unlikely of rivals -- to win the deciding tiebreak.

This week both Murray and Federer had the opportunity to avenge these tough losses during the semis of the Australian Open -- and both took their tasks seriously. While the Scot ceded his first set, it appeared the twenty-two sets Cilic had already endured finally began to take their toll. Murray was able to pull even and ultimately close out the match in just over three hours.

Roger benefited from a similarly exhausted opponent. Shockingly Tsonga, who made the finals in Melbourne in 2008, had never played a five-set match until this week. But after a grueling fourth round against Nicolas Almagro and a disappointing sputter by Novak Djokovic in the quarters, Jo-Wilfried had amassed a nice 2-0 record in the long matches. That score wasn't even remotely challenged on Friday -- three-time champ Federer sailed through in easy sets, winning eighty-four percent of his first serves and breaking Tsonga five times. In ninety minutes he was on and off the court and ready to contest his twenty-second Major final.



So we're in for a reprise of the '08 U.S. Open, where Roger rolled over Andy in his first Slam championship match. Will Murray be able to avenge that loss too? He does, after all, hold a 6-4 lead in head-to-heads against the King, and has been playing some of the most impressive tennis in the field, losing only one set this tournament.

But Roger has gone two years without a title Down Under -- the longest stretch he's ever allowed anyone to take what's been so often his. He exacted his own revenge over Nikolay Davydenko two rounds ago and barely had to break a sweat in the semis. From what I've seen he's certainly going to do his best to keep Murray Major-less -- and I have a feeling, he'll be successful.

Before that, though, the women's final on Saturday will feature two more players looking to make up for the past. Serena Williams won her last meeting with Justine Henin in the 2008 Miami quarters, the Belgian's penultimate tournament before retiring, but Justine took their three prior matches, all at Grand Slams. I guarantee that both will come out swinging, and can't help but feel the result will set an interesting tone for the rest of the year.

Here's hoping it's a good one!

Two Chinese, a Wildcard and a Defending Champion Walk Onto a Court...

Could the Australian Open women's semifinal be any more random?

Even with all the great tennis we've been seeing over the last several days -- from the most unlikely of sources -- I don't think anyone would have guessed that these are the four women who'd make it to the Final Four: world #1 Serena Williams, 2004 champ Justine Henin and compatriots Jie Zheng and Ni Li will battle tonight for the chance to play for the first Major title of the year. And they've all had somewhat bumpy roads to this point.

Serena is easily the favorite of the group. Last year's
titleholder has made it her mission to win even more Slams and has manifested that mindset since stepping on the court in Melbourne -- until Wednesday she hadn't dropped serve once this entire tournament. In the quarters though she was a bit imperfect against Victoria Azarenka, a woman who had been serving strongly herself this fortnight, and given her performance against the Belarusian, I began to wonder if Serena would advance. But down a set and two breaks in the second, Williams did what she does best, acing herself out of trouble and making the semis here for the fifth time.

The other half of the bracket is headlined by an unseeded Justine Henin trying to make her eleventh Grand Slam final. Despite being a finalist in Brisbane, she's only a wildcard Down Under and has fought through one obstacle after another to emerge from the toughest quarter of the draw. For the past five rounds Justine has displayed the same elegance and power she had in the first part of her career. As one of the tinier players on Tour, it's not surprising that she's struggled a bit on serve and committed more errors than she has winners, but Henin has shown little indication that she can't still compete at the top level, even after a nearly two-year absence.

She will meet another diminutive player in Jie Zheng, ranked thirty-fifth in the world. An accomplished doubles player, this by far is her best singles performance in Melbourne and, really, any tournament for some time -- her last title came in 2006. Jie hasn't met a top-ten player yet this tournament, but she's had sound performances against the second-tier elite, including Marion Bartoli and Alona Bondarenko. Henin will be her toughest competition so far, but she's had the most rest of any woman taking the court on Thursday. I won't hold my breath, or go so far as to call for an upset, but stranger things have happened.

Serena's opponent on Thursday will be Na Li, vanquisher of the elder Williams. She rounds out the first ever Slam semi with two Chinese contenders and next week becomes the first ever woman from that country to break into the top ten. Her last round was a sloppy victory, one with seventeen breaks and second-serve percentages below forty, but a victory nonetheless. After being down a set and 4-5 on her foe's serve, the #17 player in the world found what she needed to stage her best Major performance. Of course to go any further, she'll have to defeat her third favored and most intimidating rival yet. And with less than twenty-four hours since she ended her last match, it's an uphill battle to even dream about an all-China final.

It's a motley crew for several reasons: culturally diverse, rankings all over the map, various levels of experience and title tallies, and probably one of the shortest semis, by height, in history. But it could also set the stage for a pretty good end to the championship -- and will surely result in a story that will endure the year!

Time-Out: Aussie Open Reassessment

You might remember that before the start of this year's Australian Open, I made a few predictions for who would make the semis. I made some mistakes, of course -- apparently I gave Maria Sharapova way more credit than I should have, as the 2008 champ went down in the first round. And while there were a few more surprises, I'd say overall I still have a chance to come out with a good score -- if only my March Madness brackets worked out so well!

But with the quarterfinal matches being held over the next two days ultimately determining just how right -- or wrong -- I'll be, I feel it's a good time to regroup and, not change, but alter some of my calls.

That big match-up between Roger Federer and Nikolay Davydenko has manifested in the quarters, and still could create the sparks I was anticipating. Roger has been playing extremely well and looked like a machine against Lleyton Hewitt on Monday, while Davydenko did struggle a bit against Fernando Verdasco in the fourth round. Even still, the Russian is playing great offense, serving well and, for the most part, not making a lot of errors. I'm still picking him for the upset, mostly because I'm aching for some excitement, though I admit I like my chances a little less now.

The other highly-anticipated duel between defending champ Rafael Nadal and fifth seed Andy Murray will be contested on Tuesday, and this one makes me a little nervous. They haven't met at a Major since the two-day ordeal of the 2008 U.S. Open, so it'll be interesting to see what each brings. Though Rafa still has the fight that we've always known him to possess, Murray hasn't dropped a set this whole tournament. And talk about a strong service game -- the Scot's only double faulted seven times in four matches. Nadal's doing well too, playing solid against the guns of Ivo Karlovic in the last round, so I'm hoping that the fact he's been challenged and survived will pull him through to the semis.

In the third quarter Novak Djokovic will reprise his '08 final against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who on Monday played his first ever five set match to advance over Nicolas Almagro. The Frenchman actually has the winning record, having beaten the Serb four times after losing back in Melbourne. But Nole's been just as impressive as Murray in the past week, winning more than seventy percent of his first serves and only losing seventeen games in his last nine sets. I think he's also learned a thing or two since his championship run here two years ago, so I'm still in his corner.

The match-up between Andy Roddick and Marin Cilic could be the most interesting of the men's quarters. You might remember that I gave the American a slight edge over Cilic a week ago, and I stand by that. But both men endured monster fourth rounds -- Roddick came back from two sets down against Fernando Gonzalez before the Chilean fell apart at the end of the fourth, while the Croat battle for four hours and thirty-eight minutes before getting past a persistent Juan Martin Del Potro. They've both had a day to rest, but I'm sure both will want to make this a quick day on the courts. But Cilic has been challenged a few times in Melbourne, while Roddick has been sailing relatively smoothly -- my bet's on the American to regroup faster.

When I look at the ladies my score, but not necessarily my logic, drops dramatically.

Serena Williams remains the clear favorite in this part of the bracket. Besides being the defending champion, she's the only woman who hasn't been broken this tournament. Her quarterfinal opponent, Victoria Azarenka, could prove to be a little difficult, though. This will be the third straight time the two have met in Melbourne, and the Belarusian actually took a set from Serena in last year's fourth round. Though she eventually retired from that match, Azarenka bounced back with a decisive win in Miami. She's also looked good this year, storming through her first four matches before losing her cool for a set against Vera Zvonareva on Monday. But as much as I'd like to switch my vote, I still have to give Williams the advantage. She's just too tough at these big events.

As I suspected Dinara Safina's back problems weren't completely off the table, and though she did advance farther than I expected, she retired from her fourth round match while trailing 4-5 in the first set. This was the portion of the draw I'd given to Sharapova, and as I already mentioned that dream died early. But her vanquisher, Maria Kirilenko, is still alive, and she'll face a much less intimidating Jie Zheng in the quarters. Kirilenko has only won one of the pair's previous five meetings, but she's been decisive in her play this week. I'll count it as a technical victory if the other twenty-two year old blonde Russian named Maria makes the semis!

The extremely competitive third quarter did not disappoint. The quality of tennis we saw coming out of the Belgian trio and top seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva couldn't help but make you smile. Justine Henin has looked good after a tough second round match, facing and dismissing challenges from her opponents to make her sixth career quarterfinal here. The surprising winner of the section, though, would have to be Nadia Petrova who defeated the reigning U.S. and French Open champs in successive matches. Though she did oust my pick for this bracket, I'm not sure she'll be able to pull off three big upsets in a row. Petrova's only made the semis of a Major once -- in 2005 in Paris -- and she didn't have a particularly strong 2009. I'm thinking the sentimental and on-paper favorite will be Henin.

The last section, I'd said, would be the one in which someone we never expected would emerge. I'd picked Shahar Peer as the spoiler, and even though that didn't work out, my theory still could. I've been surprised with how well Venus Williams is playing -- she hasn't really been a contender at Majors other than Wimbledon for years, but she's barely even blinked this week, only losing one set to Francesca Schiavone before dominating the next two. She'll meet Na Li, who dismantled the top seed in the quarter, Caroline Wozniacki, for a spot in the semis. Venus should be the favorite, but Na's actually won their only meeting at the Beijing Olympics. I'd love to see her pull off the win again and make the semis for the first time at a Slam.

So I'll give myself a grade of B+ for now. Of course Federer, Murray and even Tsonga to an extent could cause me to earn some pretty quick demerits, but I'll keep up hope. In any case we certainly are seeing some of the best tennis we have in a while, in both the men's and women's brackets. And even if all my picks fall in the next few days, I can't really complain -- well, I probably will, but I'll try not to!

Incidentally, you guys called it right. In my poll, sixty percent of you said DelPo was the man least likely to make the semis while Kuznetsova received forty percent of your votes, highest of the women. It sure will be interesting to see if the remaining top seeds are able to pull through!

Who Has to Hold?

I hate serving. Always have. When I was kid breaking my opponent was not the issue, and I could almost guarantee that the player who held his serve first was the one who would win. Even now I still find myself playing First-Ball-In or Three-Fault tennis. No one wants to win a match on double faults.

I feel bad about it -- it's frustrating that the one shot in a match over which I really had total control could go just about anywhere it wanted to. But I wrote it off to the fact that 1) I'm pretty short, 2) no one ever taught me proper ball tosses and racquet swings, and 3) I'm only an amateur.

Turns out those three factors don't matter -- the pros, even the tall ones who've trained for years with the best coaches, can't really hold their serve either.

Now that's not totally fair, of course. Rafael Nadal and Ivo Karlovic only broke each other once per set last night, with Rafa happily coming out on top of that battle. And during the marathon, historic Wimbledon final last year, Andy Roddick wasn't broken until the very last, seventy-seventh game -- there were only three breaks total during that four-hour-plus match, and Andy had two of them!

Is it just on the women's side then? Maybe. But even players like Karlovic, who fired off 121 aces in four rounds, can't advance well into the draws of Majors. And typically strong women like Serena Williams can also struggle. In her third round match when she was serving at 5-0 against Carla Suarez Navarro, about to close out an easy first set, she hit nine errors, endured thirteen deuces and faced six break points in a twenty-three minute game that more than doubled the length of that entire set. Serena advanced of course, despite the little hiccup, but others found themselves going through a little more trouble in order to advance.

It shouldn't be surprising that 5'5" Justine Henin has trouble holding her serve -- it's really her beautiful backhands and crushing groundstrokes that have won her seven Grand Slam titles. In her second round match against Elena Dementieva she had two chances to serve for the match and ceded both of them -- more than half of the games actually went to the server. In her fourth round Sunday against fellow Belgian Yanina Wickmayer, Justine was broken four times and even lost the second set 1-6. Wickmayer was not much better, allowing Henin to convert on sixty percent of her break opportunities, including two of two in the deciding set. But mediocre serving aside, the more experienced champion was able to pull through when it mattered, making the quarters in Melbourne for the sixth time in her career.

Earlier in the day world #35 and former top-twenty player Jie Zheng was similarly unimpressive in her service games against Hobart champ Alona Bondarenko. The seeded Ukrainian actually won slightly more on her first attempts -- fifty-one percent to Zheng's even fifty. But the woman who ousted Jelena Jankovic in the previous round was even worse on second tries, winning only a third of those serves versus 56% for the Chinese #2. The ladies traded breaks through the first set -- three a piece -- before Zheng, a shrimpy 5'4", finally won in the tiebreak. The server lost another five games in the second, but Jie was able to hold when it counted, winning the last game of the match for a chance to play in her first ever quarterfinal here.

They weren't the only ones. Five-foot-ten Nadia Petrova lost her serve three times in her defeat of reigning French Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva traded breaks with Gisela Dulko five times in the second set of their third round match. Apparently, it would seem, losing your serve doesn't guarantee your opponent a win, a hard lesson Alexandra Dulgheru learned when she broke a six-foot-tall Wickmayer nine times in the first round and still lost.

Of course, this isn't an argument that players shouldn't work on improving their first serve percentage, or that having the ability to bomb ace after ace won't serve you in the long run. But it is amusing that the usual race-to-break mentality of tennis can be so easily turned on its head. And it highlights just how important an all-around game is on Tour. Maybe when we start to see some real, legitimate big servers or even -- God forbid! -- serve-and-volleyers, especially on the women's side, we could start to see a whole new style of tennis, and a new crop of champions emerge.

Until then, I'll continue to harbor delusions of being able to compete with the pros with my dinky little serve! Hey, if they can do it, so can I!

Digging Out of a Hole

A funny thing happens during Grand Slams -- every year, almost without fail, as I watch the men play, I'm amazed by how many five set matches we see. And every year I wonder if we've set the record for time on court or games played. This time I feel it has to be true!

It's a testament to the fitness and ability of these athletes that they can put forth so much effort for three, even four, straight hours -- and a bigger testament to their mental toughness that they can pull themselves together and come back in a match they would have lost in any other tournament.

Take for example the marathon second round between U.S. Open champ Juan Martin Del Potro and my dear James Blake which lasted four and a quarter hours. Blake led the thing two sets to one, and at a non-Major would have been off the court -- with a wholly different result -- more than a hundred minutes sooner. While I personally was rooting for the American to pull off the upset, I have to hand it to DelPo for continuing to show the perseverance of a champion and once again quieting critics who say he isn't fit enough to be a contender.

Even more impressive, though, were a couple of matches contested on Thursday.

Thirtieth seed Juan Monaco, once ranked #14 in the world, has been clawing himself back from a rough 2009. He should have been a heavy favorite against Frenchman Michael Llodra, who hadn't passed the first round of the Australian Open since 2000. But after just over an hour, Monaco inexplicably found himself in a two set deficit. The two men traded breaks in the third, ultimately forcing a tiebreak, but then it was all Argentine. Juan won almost two of three points for the rest of the game and actually took every point on his first serve in the fourth set. Somehow he was able to regroup just in time to pull off the victory.

Spain's Albert Montanes found himself in a similar predicament while facing #104 Stephane Robert. The two had met twice before in Challenger events way back in 2004, but Montanes has clearly had the better career since then. A titlist in Bucharest and Estoril last year, he claimed the thirty-first seed in Melbourne, but after losing the second set tiebreak he was in trouble, too. He might have benefited from his less-experienced opponent losing steam, though, as the next three sets combined took less time than the first two put together -- Montanes upped the quality of his serve while Robert's fell apart and only allowed one break opportunity from that point on.

One seeded player, though, wasn't able to avoid the upset. Veterans, David Ferrer and Marcos Baghdatis have been around for years and the Spaniard won their two previous meetings in straight sets. He would have here, too, had this only been a best-of-three tournament. But Baghdatis, the winner in Sydney last week and the '06 finalist at the Open, tends to do well Down Under. He was unable to convert on any of five break chances in the first set, but like Monaco he rallied in the third-set tiebreak. And after averaging only sixty-three percent on first serve in the opening two sets, he improved to 87.5% in the last two. The Cypriot closed out the four-plus hour match with a 6-1 set to make the third round for the fifth time in his career.

Playing five sets is clearly a test of physical endurance, but even more so of mental maturity. And when players do everything they can to secure a straight-set victory only to find themselves still trying to smack forehands and fire off serves hours later, it's easy to see how even the best players can let big leads crumble -- Blake, after all, had been infamous for an eleven match losing streak in five-setters. But hats off to those who are able to stay with it, and even play better as the match wears on. Of course it remains to be seen if any of these players can follow up their recent wins, or if they'll be too exhausted to even lift a racket in their next match. But at least they've proven they shouldn't be counted out too soon.

And that maybe they should be considered even more of a threat now.