Tag Archives: li na

finally the women’s final

Posted on June 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Two weeks ago as the tournament got underway, the women’s field was as wide open as it ever has been.  No Serena or Venus, no Justine, Kim bounced out early.  Any one of a dozen or more players could have won and we all just had to watch the action unfold and see which way the wind eventually blew.

Few thought Francesca Schiavone, the defending champion, would get to the final today or hoist the trophy for a second year.  Few thought she’d ever win it once, or any other Grand Slam.  She nearly didn’t make it as she looked down the long lonely barrel of the rifle in her quarterfinal match against Pavlyuchenkova, down a set and 4-1.  So for her to take the court today was at least a little surprising and a testament to her clay court skills and fighting spirit.

Across the net, a woman no one thought could play on clay, including her.  Growing up in China, her parents didn’t even know what tennis was and there weren’t any clay courts, that’s for sure.  Today at least 30 million Chinese watched at 9 PM Beijing time as Li Na took the court for the final of the French Open.

Li has a new coach and he has encouraged her in this direction.  He must have known something because Li has done well in Madrid and Rome before coming to Paris.  Her former coach left her to work with Maria Sharapova, so it had to feel just a little extra good when she beat her the other day.  Li Na’s husband was her coach until recently but after the Australian Open she fired him and that seems to have been a good decision.  Now he can just be a husband.  Much better.

Li reached the finals of the Australian Open end of January and she played a three setter against Kim Cliijsters.  It was her first Grand Slam final, she lost, but she learned.  Today she knew how to be, how to play, and as it turned out, how to win.

You could learn a lot about tennis from the match they played.  Li’s game is a power game, she’s strong off both wings and she hits flat and hard deep into the court, often the corners.  Francesca’s game is to get to net as much as possible, where she is very adept at put away shots, and to throw out a variety of shots and spins to keep her opponent guessing, and, importantly, running.  Li was so dialed into her game for the first set, she utterly deprived Francesca of the chance to play hers.  Most of the set, and most of the match, Li dictated while Francesca reacted.

Li never seemed nervous.  She was ready for the stage and for the win.  In the second set she had chances to go up a double break practically insuring the victory, but Francesca fought back and started to be able to play her game as Li started to miss and began to feel nerves.

It was great to see Francesca come to life.  She very nearly got back into the match and if she had won the second set, who knows what a one set winner takes all scenario would have looked like.  But in the tiebreak that decided the second set, Li just played brilliantly, shots with depth but also cat and mouse encounters and odd shots that required improvisation.  She played like a clay courter a bit, and she won the tiebreak without giving away a single point, 7-0.

As Francesca’s shot went long on the last point, Li slid and fell to the clay.  It was over.  She was and is the new champion, the first Chinese person, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam title.

You think they’re going to build clay courts in China now?  People have talked for awhile about an imminent explosion of interest in tennis in China and surely that’s here now.  Ten years from now all the kids who are going to start playing in China these days because they are inspired by Li Na, we’ll be seeing their names at the top of the game.  If you sell tennis racquets and have an entree into the Chinese market, chances are good you’re going to take some very nice vacations very soon.

Both of these players are likeable, so whichever of them had won it, it was going to be a happy thing.  After the ceremony, after the photo shoot and on-court interviews, finally Li Na got her gear and waved to the remaining people in the stands, walking out the door from which she had entered three hours earlier.  Ball kids carried the all white huge bouquet of flowers that each of the players received before they came on court and all of the ball kids were lined up on both sides of the hallway and stairs, clapping, as the new champion smiled and descended a flight of stairs into the locker room.

One more match tomorrow and how bad can that be?  Federer vs. Nadal.  Have at it, boys.

And on a final note today.  What a bungled deal that whole thing was this week with Fabio Fognini, the Italian player who beat Albert Montanes in the round of sixteen.  He had leg cramps during play and in the middle of a game received treatment.  It was the chair umpire who went out of her chair and on to the court to say whatever she said and after that play stopped.  You are not supposed to receive treatment for leg cramps, in the middle of a game or on a changeover.  So I don’t know why the umpire did what she did.  And funnily enough, she was the one who officiated the final today.

Then, it turned out that more was wrong and the doctor for the tournament weighed in by saying Fognini probably shouldn’t play for a couple of weeks.  But before that, he withdrew from the tournament, his decision, rather than wait a day or so to see if it got better and then decide if he was well enough to play, and his camp apparently said he decided not to play because it was Djokovic he would face.  Maybe if it had been someone else he would have tried, but Djokovic?  He was saying why bother, I’m going to lose.  I had thought he felt bad to miss the opportunity but apparently not.  He’s no Francesca Schiavone.  That’s a little too lazy and spineless for my taste.

Enjoy the final match wherever you are.  More from Cupcakes and Tennis tomorrow and thanks for reading.

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forza!

Posted on June 2, 2011 | 2 Comments

I confess I have not been rising at 3 am all these mornings of tennis from Paris, that’s when the live tennis begins, 11 am in France.  But today, I woke up at 5 am, set to watch the women’s semifinals, and they didn’t even start until 6 am.

First up, Maria Sharapova and Li Na on a very windy but sunny afternoon.  With an exceedingly high ball toss, Maria had her hands full.  Full of difficulty.  Where earlier in the tournament, and in Rome, where she won the title, her serve was working well, today the windy conditions played havoc with it.  And it made the critical difference. Her first serve percentage was only 45% and that just never gets the job done in this kind of match.

Li Na was in command, with just a few patchy spots where she sprayed her forehand, and she’s a better mover than Maria.  Over and over she exposed the limitations of Maria’s footwork.  Breaks of serve were exchanged.  Li went out in front to begin, then Sharapova broke back to get things back on serve.  In the final game of the first set, Maria serving, Li took a 40 – 0 lead, thanks to double faults from her opponent and on the final point, Maria went in for a forehand kill shot, but the ball clipped the tape and bounced out.  A pretty unpleasant way to lose the first set, if you were Maria.

The second set was closer but in the end, at 5-5, Li came out to win a love service game.  In the final game, Sharapova threw in her ninth double fault of the match, Li generated two match points for herself.  Maria gifted her the match by serving one more double fault, losing the second set 7-5.  Yet another ignominious end to a set, and in this case, the whole shebang.

Maria will not complete her career Grand Slam, as she had hoped.  Li Na will play in the finals on Saturday, her second Grand Slam final, having made it to the Australian Open final earlier this year.

So the second set of semifinalists, Marion Bartoli of France and Francesca Schiavone of Italy, took the court a short while later knowing one of them would play the Chinese woman in the final.  But which one would it be?

To my mind, the outcome of this match was easier to read early on, though you still never know.  The truth is that Francesca is the better player.  Actually the truth is that Francesca is a clay court player and none of the other three semifinalists were or are, including Bartoli who should know how to slide but doesn’t.  In addition, Francesca has tremendous variety in her game, off both wings she can and does slice the ball and hit it with topspin.  You don’t know which is coming when and you have to be ready for both.  Will it jump up high and you’ll hit it back with all your strength from shoulder height?  Or will it sidespin low on the court, requiring you to bend your knees to get down to it?

Francesca has a fine, powerful serve, surprising since she is so small herself, and even in the windy conditions, it worked reliably.  Bartoli’s game is flat and hard hitting and though Francesca had to run and work hard, you could still see that it was the Italian who was calling the shots and the French woman who was reacting.

The stadium was packed and though the French have taken a long time to warm to Marion, they were fully behind her.  Last year, everyone was cheering for Francesca in the final against Sam Stosur, and in earlier matches.  But she wasn’t playing a French woman then.    Still, nothing deterred Francesca today.  (Although there was something that went on with the umpire early in the match and I don’t know if she was noting how long Bartoli was taking between points.  Marion did get a warning for time violation once, but the fact is she averaged 35 seconds between points to Francesca’s 26.)   She played her game, defended her title and earned herself another chance on Saturday to take home the title for a second year in a row.

I like Li Na, she has a great fun personality, always laughing and joking, but I’ll be on Francesca’s side for this one.  It’s such a wonderful story.  She’s thirty years old, a veteran, she’s been knocking on the door for a long time.  She’s incredibly ripped, works hard.  Anyone who has worked long and hard towards a goal can appreciate that when the reward comes, it comes because of all the work.  It’s not a fluke, it’s all there in the final moment, every practice session, every match, every everything.  So for all spirited men and women who work hard and have a dream, Francesca is an inspiration.

Go win the final, Francesca, hoist the trophy and take home a big fat paycheck.  She did that last year and has joked that all her friends expect her to pick up the dinner checks.  I’m sure this bighearted girl does it with pleasure.  Her Italian friends, many of whom drove from Italy last year at the last minute, are all here this  year, seated in a pack with flags and hats and who knows what all.

Two heart grabbing women will take the court on Saturday for the final of the French Open.  One will win.  Don’t miss it, get up early, tune in to NBC.

And come back to Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot, right through the final days.  I’m all in, can’t wait for the exciting men’s semis tomorrow and then both finals on Saturday and Sunday.  Still hard to predict, but I’ll call Schiavone now for the women’s side.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.

PS – I watched French Open Tonight last night on Tennis Channel and there was Bill Macatee interviewing none other than Guga Kuerten, the Brazilian player I wrote about in a blog post earlier this week.  Guga was probably the most loved player of any generation and it’s not hard to see why.  You just like him.  He’s a little like Francesca that way.  You just like her.  Guga is a former number one player and he won the French Open three times between 1997 and 2001.  He retired from the tour in 2008, never fully recovering from hip surgery.  These days he’s busy with his foundation in Brazil that helps poor kids, which he was himself, and he says it’s more meaningful to him than all his success and titles in tennis.

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nowhere to hide

Posted on June 1, 2011 | 1 Comment

If you watched Maria Sharapova play tennis anytime since recovering from the shoulder surgery she had a couple years ago, you would have thought her glory days were over.  The serve, which had always been a real strength, a weapon,  and the key to her game, was a mess.  The toss was off, she was attempting to learn a whole new motion, good luck with that.  She double faulted over and over and over, no exaggeration.  It was painful to watch.

Not painful to watch these days.  You no longer wonder and worry what will happen when she goes to the line to serve.  You have confidence, as does she, that she will toss it straight up, in the right place, and connect with it for a ball that nearly everyone will find difficult to return.  After that, she will hammer you with furious ground shots from the forehand and backhand wing and if your name is Andrea Petkovic and you find yourself on Suzanne Lenglen on June 1, 2011, your tournament will be over.

And not just over.  But over with a beatdown.  Maria recovered from her encounter with Caroline Garcia in the nick of time by reeling off eleven games in a row, thank you very much.  Today it was the reverse.  She reeled off seven in a row, 6-0 for a bagel first set, and then one more before Andrea got on the board.  Good golly Miss Molly.  You think Maria wants this title?

It will complete her career Grand Slam, an achievement for the exalted few.  Roger completed his in Paris, Andre did the same in the City of Light and it’s a pretty good bet Maria will do it on Saturday.  She dispensed with Petkovic, who had beaten her earlier this year at the Australian Open but whom she got the better of in Miami, 6-0, 6-3.

Her next opponent will be Li Na, the Chinese player making history for her own country by advancing to the semifinals in Paris.  Li Na won her quaterfinal match on Chatrier against Victoria Azarenka and most, including me, would have picked Vika to win that one.  Pretty convincing, playing some of the best tennis of her life, she won in straights, 7-5, 6-2.

Of the four women’s semifinalists, the only one I picked correctly was Francesca Schiavone.  She’ll take on Bartoli tomorrow.  I’ll predict the final between Schiavone and Sharapova and Maria the winner on Saturday.  But even now with only four women remaining, it could turn out differently.  Li Na could upset Maria.  Marion could upset Francesca.  And that’s what makes this women’s competition interesting to the last.

On the men’s side, I am pleased to report that the top four players in the world will compete for the two final spots.  And I had all four of them in my racquet bracket.  So, as I’ve said before and you all know, on the men’s side, these were the guys you expected to be right where they are.  Friday we’ll see two thrilling matches, or so we hope.  Djokovic vs. Federer, Nadal vs. Murray.

Anything can happen there.  But Rafa finally played a match he has to feel good about today against Robin Soderling, a victory in straights, but for the first time these two weeks, he looked like he had it going.  Hitting the ball cleanly, placing it impossibly, making the wow shots.  Robin fought back in the third set and took it to a tiebreak after looking flat footed for the first two sets, but Rafa won the tiebreak convincingly and that was that. 6-4, 6-1, 7-6.

The crowd, packed to the gills, really got into the exciting third set, after being quiet for the first two sets.  They didn’t come to see a lopsided match, just to see Rafa spank Soderling.  What they really wanted was a five set edge of your seat thriller.  Most are probably on Rafa’s side, but plenty were cheering for Soderling.

And, of course, the particular match-up of Rafa and Robin Soderling carries a weight at the French Open no other does.  Two years ago the two took the court, Chatrier, for a round of sixteen match.  I was in the stands, had a very nice seat low down on the umpire side, where I could see all the action from the door where the players come on and off the court.  I had watched Soderling in the previous round on the Bull Ring and he beat David Ferrer that day, not a happy camper, because at that point who thought Soderling would get past him?

In May 2009, Soderling was 25 in the world, he’d been on the tour for eight years, was twenty five years old.  No one payed that much attention to him.  I watched him play that day (and although he wasn’t a well known player, he was one I liked and wanted to see play) and I can’t tell you how fast and hard  he was hitting the ball, and finding the lines and the corners for winners.  Ferrer was thoroughly frustrated and ten feet from where I was sitting would pass by his chair on the changeovers, his towel in his teeth like a dog, muttering angrily.  I remember thinking if Soderling played like that against Nadal, he would beat him.

And he did.  And that’s when Soderling got famous and it’s also when he did a bunch of things to take himself and his game more seriously.  He still didn’t quite have the belief on court today, but this is a guy who isn’t the most popular in the locker room, but who has gotten the respect of his fellow players.  Robin Soderling is the only player who has beaten Rafael Nadal at the French Open. The only player.  So when these two come on court that’s what everyone knows and remembers and that’s what everyone wants to see again.  So far he hasn’t beaten him again, not in last year’s final and not today.  But there’s always next year and until someone else beats Rafa on Chatrier, Robeeeen’s the Man!

Much has been said about the fact that Rafa plays slowly and often eats up the clock and then some between points.  He gets called on this occasionally but not nearly as much as it happens.  Today even Soderling was getting annoyed and calling out to the umpire to do something about it.  Rafa even slowed things down on Soderling’s serve and you’re always supposed to play at the speed of the server.  Whatever speed you prefer, the rule at a Grand Slam is you’ve got twenty seconds from the time the umpire announces the score to the time your ball should be up in the air.  Rafa averaged 27 seconds for the match.  Does it matter?  Not  here and there, but when it’s like that for a whole important match, yes, you bet it counts.  What if Rafa had to get ready every single time in no more than twenty seconds, would he be as prepared each time or would it throw him off?  I think if he had to be rigorous about the time, he’d make the adjustment eventually but to begin with I think it would be difficult; he would feel rushed and he would flub some shots.  And at this level in these matches, it’s always the slimmest of margins that determines the winner.

Murray started slowly on Lenglen against number 35 in the world, Juan Ignacio Chela.  Chela went up 5-2 in the first set, had numerous set points, chances to win it, didn’t do it.  The second set looked like it was going to be easy for Andy but Chela fought back to make him work harder for it.  Finally, Chela, the skinny thirty two year old, lost his legs and went away quietly.  7-6, 7-5, 6-2.

Murray has shown a lot of fight.  He’s got a bum ankle, try playing on that, and popped who knows how many pills just to get through the matches he’s had to play.  You better believe he’ll come out to play against Rafa, and congrats to Andy on reaching his first semifinal at Roland Garros.

Wind was a factor on court again today.  Let’s pray to the weather gods for perfect sunshine and calm for the last four days.

Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.  See you tomorrow.

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happy memorial day

Posted on May 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Here it’s Memorial Day Monday, in Paris it’s Day 9 of the French Open.  If you were judging from the packed stands on Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen this afternoon, though, you’d swear it was a holiday.

One of the most exciting matches of the tournament so far was the two parter between David Ferrer and Gael Monfils.  With Monfils up two sets to one and Ferrer  up 2-0 in the fourth set, play was suspended last night due to darkness.  The two opponents had to wait out a five setter between Chela and Falla, the former taking the victory, before they could get on court today to finish.  There was a great shot of them in the players’ lounge hanging around until they were called with Ferrer sitting up right next to a reclining, possibly sleeping, Monfils.

Finally on court, Ferrer continued to press in the set he already had a lead in and took it rather quickly 6-1.  But then Gael actually did wake up from his nap and the fifth set was completely riveting.  Gael broke early to take a 3-1 lead.  At 5-3 Monfils served for the match. The crowd was just wildly excited.   He had two match points and relatively easy shots for the win on both of them and he dinked them into the net.  Ferrer ended up breaking for 5-4.  That quieted the crowd down.

They go into fifth set no tiebreak battle.  In the next game, Monfils had another match point, his third, and couldn’t convert.  Ferrer got out of that game, 6-6.   At 7-6, Monfils in the lead, Ferrer quickly dug himself in a deep hole, 0-40,  and all of a sudden, Monfils is looking at three more match points.  After squandering three, who knew he would get all these chances again, and so soon?  He was not to be denied this time, winning the match on the fourth match point with a no guts no glory passing shot down the line, 8-6 in the fifth.  The French crowd, not a seat empty, were rewarded and could go have dinner.

In the 6-5 game, there were a couple of dicey line calls on Monfils’ serve.  On the first, Ferrer walked up to the line and immediately rubbed out the mark, indicating it had been good.  But shotspot showed it had been out.  It happened again, Monfils now with two serves instead of a second serve only, and the chair umpire came out to have a look and called it good, giving Monfils another first serve, but shotspot again showed it to be out.  Now the technology isn’t one hundred percent, but it’s pretty close.  At moments like these in matches, this kind of thing gone wrong can be terribly expensive, can cost someone the match.  Ferrer ended up winning that point, but still.

Monfils will face Federer in the quarterfinals and I imagine it will be a lot of fun to watch, but I don’t think Roger is going to walk off the loser.  I’m a big fan of Ferrer, but I doubt he would have given Roger trouble in the end.  Against both these players, Federer has been dominant.

What is great is to see Monfils doing more with his talent than he has previously.  His coach, Roger Rashid, has been with him for three years, a record in itself apparently as Monfils has gone through coaches like they were paper napkins.  Rashid coached Lleyton Hewitt, a player who is more like Ferrer, no work too hard or too much, fighter spirit, utterly maxing out on what they’ve got to work with on small frames.  For Roger Rashid to make an impact on Monfils has been exceedingly difficult it seems.  He’s tried hard to get Gael in better physical condition so he won’t suffer all the injuries he’s had, and you can actually see him shouting at Gael on court to play harder, want it more.  I’d bet there have been more than a few times that he thought of throwing in the towel, I don’t need this shit, and getting on a plane back to his family in Australia.

That’s the thing about coaching, it takes you on the road for weeks and weeks every year.  If you’re going to do it, you damn well better have a player who makes it worth your while.

Nadal won his match against 32 year old Ivan Ljubicic, in straights, but in his press conference afterwards, he spoke candidly about how he still isn’t feeling quite right out there.  Not as consistent, more nervous at times.  If Rafa thinks he’s a different Rafa, at least so far, on court at his beloved French, I guess we ought to believe him.

Meanwhile, fierce contender and Superman tennis player Novak Djokovic is into the semifinals.  He won’t be playing a quarterfinal match because Fabio Fognini had to withdraw with what indeed wasn’t just cramping yesterday.  He’s got a muscle tear and it won’t get better in time for him to play the match tomorrow.  You had to feel bad for the guy.  His best result in a major, about to have the opportunity to maybe be the one who breaks the Novak streak, or at least have the challenge of playing him on Chatrier, a huge pleasure and privilege, and he can’t do it.

Andy Murray and Victor Troicki played the last match of the day on Lenglen and they’ll have to finish it tomorrow.  At first it looked like Murray was having real difficulty moving, the result of a bad ankle tweak two days ago.  But he fought back and the players walked off at darkness with one deciding set yet to be played.  Don’t miss that tomorrow.

On the women’s side, Li Na defeated Petra Kvitova, both surprising and not.  Either one of them could have won that match, but Kvitova beat herself.

Maria Sharapova faced off against Agnes Radwanska and piled up huge numbers of winners and unforced errors in a game of total aggression on her part and steady play by her opponent.  But Maria is playing well and when you combine that with her dogged determination, she’s going to come out on top.  Aggie had five set points to win the second set and take it to a third and she couldn’t close the door.  Maria did it instead winning the match 7-6, 7-5.

And on Court One, Andrea Petkovic, the German player who has come into the spotlight this year, won her match in three tough sets against Maria Kirilenko.  Last year she lost on the same court to Kuznetsova, so it must have felt good to her to take the victory this year.

Finally, Azarenka dispensed with Makarova in two easy sets.

So it’s down to eight women and you still don’t know who’s going to win.  Sharapova, Li Na, Schiavone, Petkovic, Azarenka, Pavlyuchenkova, Kuznetsova and Bartoli.  Do you know?  I don’t.  The quarterfinal matches should all be interesting.

And it’s down to seven men.  Nadal, Soderling, Chela, Monfils, Federer, Djokovic and either Murray or Troicki.  Besides Novak, already there, who else will be in the semis?

Still some great tennis to come as we now head into the true business end of the tournament.  Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.

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no more fooling around

Posted on January 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

It gets down to the final few days and all of a sudden, I’m suffering tennis withdrawal.  Whaddya mean, there’s no live tennis on tonight?  But since we can’t have this going on week in, week out in Melbourne or any place else, it has to diminish and then end.

So the semifinal match between Andy Murray and David Ferrer was well worth watching.  Ferrer surprised everyone by winning the first set, Murray the heavy favorite to win and not looking much like it at that point.  But one of the great challenges in these really big matches is to figure out another game plan if the one you came out with isn’t working, and Andy is good at this.  He has lots of possibilities to choose, which in one way can handicap him but at times like this helps him.  He can come in and finish shots off early if staying back isn’t getting it done.  He can vary it with different slices and spins and paces and all of this works against a player like Ferrer who has basically one game.  What you accomplish by varying things is you gain control.  Your opponent gets no rhythm, he doesn’t know what’s coming next so all he can do is defend and that means he can’t dictate, you do.  And if Ferrer can’t dictate, well…

Eh, voila.  Murray took it in four, winning the next three sets 7-6, 6-1, and 7-6.  It didn’t help that Ferrer has a less than impressive tiebreak record, losing a few more than he’s won.  Neither tiebreak was close, Murray had a handful of set points, and then match points.

The women’s final between Kim Cliijsters and Li Na went three sets with Kim the winner.  Li Na won the first set pretty convincingly 6-3.  It looked like Kim didn’t have a plan and Li Na did.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her take the second set and walk off with the whole shebang.  But in a match rife with breaks of serve, Kim held her serve in a long multi deuce game at 2-3 in the second set and from that point on she took charge.  And like Murray, she won because she could problem solve on the court and change it up and because she also has a large number of tools from which to choose.  In the third set, Li Na was getting upset by the crowd calling out and by the camera flashes.  When a player is being distracted in this way in a match of this magnitude, you know something is off.  You simply have to focus on the tennis, no matter what, if you want to have a chance of winning.  A player of Kim’s talent and experience and success sees that kind of behavior from her opponent and it just gives her even more advantage.

So Kim finally feels, as she said in her articulate comments at the award ceremony afterwards, she has earned the right to be called Aussie Kim.  The nickname has been hers for nearly a decade, first proffered when she was Lleyton Hewitt’s fiance.  As is well known now, she didn’t marry him.  She went on to marry Brian, an American, and have their daughter Jada.  Lleyton married an Aussie girl and well known actress, Bec, and they have two children themselves.  Life goes on.   But now with her first and possibly only Aussie championship, she will still and always be Aussie Kim.  On her own terms.

Li Na is already a star in China and her success will only spur the games’ development in the world’s most populous country.  She had a great tournament by any measure.  We all got to know her better and she endeared herself to all with her refreshing honesty and sense of humor.  Whether she will win a Grand Slam title remains to be seen, and it will make it interesting in the next three majors.  She’ll certainly be a serious contender.

As for the last match remaining, the men’s final between Murray and Djokovic, it should be great.  Every chance it will go five sets and be close and hard fought.  These two are a whole new rivalry.  They know each other since they were juniors and are a week apart in age.  Novak won the Australian Open a few years back, Murray has yet to gain a Grand Slam and the entire weight of British history is once again on his back, the famous seventy five year drought.  Once he hit the semis, the British press came to Melbourne in droves and there’s certainly a strong chance their long travels will be rewarded.

It’s almost impossible to call this one, but here’s a new factor.  The weather, which is generally an issue in Melbourne, has really not been for the whole tournament.  It’s been cool some of the time, and even the warm days haven’t been hot, never mind brutal.  But tomorrow it’s supposed to hit 100 degrees and it should be warm in Rod Laver for the evening match.  I’ll be interested to see how this affects Novak whose breathing difficulties are well known, especially in heat and humidity.  That said, Novak can be sucking wind and looking like he’s all but dead and still win matches.  Still, the weather will work in Murray’s favor, I think.  And I’m going to predict he is the winner, though it’s a wobbly position I admit.

It really will be, as it always is in tennis, a case of the best man wins on the day.  We get to stay up very late or get up very early depending on where you live and drink the appropriate accompanying beverages and witness the battle.  Savor it, it’s the last match of the Aussie Open!

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