Clijsters Does it Again
Kim Clijsters has won her first Grand Slam title outside of the US, beating Li Na in the final earlier on today 3-6 6-3 6-3. It took a lot to beat Na, who made a strong start to her match, putting Clijsters on the back foot almost instantly. She dominated in the first set, rarely letting Clijsters get into her stride, and was rewarded with a 3-6 win.
But the second set Clijsters finally managed to wrangle back her game, and she started to inch her way ahead as Li’s error count increased. Although it seemed possible Na might fight her way back into the set and deal the deciding blow, she just didn’t have enough in her to finish off Clijsters. The next set was a game of nerves as Clijsters held on to her service games, and when she broke Na it started to become clear that she was heading to her third Grand Slam title.
Clijsters had been beaten in an Australian Open final back in 2004, but none of that seemed to matter as she stood on the brink of winning the title. She close out the championship game to love, and collapsed in what looked like relief on the championship point. Clijsters was tearful and emotional, but couldn’t have enough good things to say about her opponent. She admitted that it had been tense, and that Na had wrong footed her the whole way through.
Clijsters has now won three Grand Slams since returning from retirement. The strangest part of all is that she had only won one before retirement. Better post-retirement than pre-retirement? Apparently it more »
Written by:The Women’s Semi Final Set Up
It is sad to see that Justine Henin has had to retire for the second time because of injury. But it sounds like it was definitely the best decision, with a recurring elbow injury causing her pain and putting her long-term health at risk. She was beaten in the third round by Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Australian Open, and it seemed to just be another early shock defeat. However, that seemed to be the last straw for Henin, and she has decided to leave the sport not long after deciding to come back. She will be sorely missed, and we will always wonder about the lengths that her sporting rivalry with Kim Clijsters could have got to.
Justine Henin left a draw that had been blown wide open; not only by her disappearance, but by the exit of Venus Williams too. Once again, the draw is dotted with players who all desperately want a first Grand Slam title, and now have a much better chance of doing so with two top players gone. The one who I imagine will make the most of this is Kim Clijsters. The Belgian beat Agnieszka Radwanska in a tentative 6-3 7-6 (7-4) quarter final, and will face Vera Zvonareva in the semi-finals.
Zvonareva met an unsettled Petra Kvitova in her last round, and she has gone through to the semis off the back of a comfortable win at 6-2 6-4.
On the other side of the semi finals, Caroline Wozniacki beat Francesca Schiavone for her place, battling from a set down to win 3-6 6-3 6-3. She had a struggle on her hands with the Italian French Open title holder, more »
Written by:The Make Up of the Men’s Semis
Some things have been pretty much as expected in the quarter finals of this Australian Open event. For example, Federer has plodded along in his typical fearsome but ever regal presence to the semi-finals on the back of very convincing wins. He beat Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets, and spent little time brushing aside his fellow Swiss player. This, though, is not a Federer that has yet to prove he is unbeatable. He has dropped three sets in the last four rounds and, for Federer, that is uncharacteristically wobbly. He wants his 17th Grand Slam, and this is probably the first time I have personally thought that he may have to wait a while.
After all, there are other sharks circling the title. One of them, however, would not be Rafael Nadal. Yes, I know, there were tears all round when this blogger heard the news. My local tennis club have announced that they will be holding (in what sounded like all seriousness) a minute’s silence in his honour. The Spaniard fell foul to a leg injury, and Ferrer put him out of his misery with a surprisingly quick 6-4 6-2 6-2. David Ferrer is now heading to his first semi-final at the Australian Open, where he will meet Andy Murray.
Now, Andy Murray. There are strange echoes about last year to his trajectory through the tournament. He starts off well, shrugs off the challenges, has an epic battle that tests his current form and then…well, last year he made it to the finals. He beat Alexandr Dolgopolov in four sets in t more »
Written by:3 Days, 3 Shockers (or “How my men’s team died”)
First day, first shocker. Davydenko lost to Florian Mayer in 4 sets. OMG! Admittedly, Mayer had just beaten Delpo in his first match since his return to tennis, but that was easily dismissed. Davydenko had never had trouble with Mayer before. Mayer had rarely if ever shown the sort of tennis necessary to beat a player like Davydenko. So the first round looked easy.
If form held, Nikolay’s first seeded opponent (3rd round) would have been Verdasco. Nice. Davydenko has a career mark of 7-1 against Verdasco, the only loss coming in ’05 on clay, and including a 5-set victory in last year’s Aussie Open. I like that for an over-16 seed!
What’s more, Nikolay’s record against Berdych, clearly his probable R16 opponent, is 9-1, with Berdych’s only win coming on grass at Wimbledon in ’09, a surface Davydenko famously hates. So Nikolay looked — after the draw and before the tourney started — like a near lock to be in the quarters against Djokovic. Or so I thought. Oops, no Davydenko.
I picked my unseeded male player by starting with the top ranked unseeded player and checking his first round and probable second round opponents. Very important to have a weak first round opponent because of the big penalty for first round losses. So who looked like the worst player in the draw? Bernard Tomic. The 18 year-old Aussie was 5-11 lifetime in ATP events, including 0-2 this year. He tried to qualify for this tourney but was beaten in the first round of the quallies. T more »
Written by:Early Wobblers…
As ever with a Grand Slam event, there are few big players that experience what I like to call ‘early wobblers’. Not all-out failures, just a little hiccup at the beginning of what could be an exemplary display, or something that could be the first signs of a crushing defeat later on.
Round two is usually the best place to find the early wobblers, when the top players can often meet their first big challenge of the tournament. The big early wobbler for round two was Roger Federer.
Yes, Roger Federer had ‘a little hiccup’ in Round Two.
To give Federer his due, he was facing Gilles Simon, a tough player to play wherever and whenever you may meet him. The Frenchman made Federer fight for his third round place, and pushed him to five sets before Roger eventually closed out the game. Simon is a problem for Roger Federer, and had lost the last two previous matches against him. Simon rattled Roger’s game, but it was not enough to break the second seed, and Federer eventually came away with a win by sheer nerve and skill 6-2 6-3 4-6 6-3.
Novak Djokovic also advanced to the third round, but he had a little wobbler of his own. His match was a battle against Ivan Dodig of Croatia, who forced the Serb into a subdued state of play that could have been the end of the game completely. But Djokovic found a way to pick his game – and his attitude – back up again, and finished the last sets with a blistering scoreline of 6-0 6-2. He will play Viktor Troicki (yes, the fello more »
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