Tennis
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Szlia
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News of his death are greatly exaggerated: the guy played a shitty match no doubt, but those have been few and far between in the last 13 months, he fought hard (when a couple years ago it would feel like he did not care when he played poorly) and in the end he was 4 points away from winning the match in 4 sets against a guy who played pretty much his best match ever. Anyway....
The top half played the 3rd round and it resulted in a surprising amount of one sided affairs: only two of the 8 matches went to 4 sets! The only upset came to the hand of big server Muller who upset 19th seed Isner. With Simon's defeat to Ferrer it means there are no americans and no frenchmen in the fourth round. I have not checked, but I feel like it must not have happened that often. 4 Spaniards though!
The Round of 16:
DJOKOVICvsMULLER: The serbian only loss this year has been to Karlovic. Muller is the next best thing in this big serving / net rushing style.
LOPEZvsRAONIC: The spaniard really weaseled his way through. Will he be able to put pressure on Raonic who might have trouble returning the leftie's serves?
WAWRINKAvsGARCIA-LOPEZ: The spaniard summarily dismissed the swiss in the first round of the French last year. Will he be able to do the same with a more confident Wawrinka who played three good matches?
FERRERvsNISHIKORI: The brand of tennis played by Nishikori, aggressive and well constructed points, does wonder against Ferrer. The japanese player leads the head to head 6-3 and won all 4 of their 2014 meeting.
BERDYCHvsTOMIC: Both are in good form so it should be a nice opposition in styles.
ANDERSONvsNADAL: It's only the 2nd meeting between the two strangely. The south african has the type of big game that can bother Nadal, but it feels like Anderson is just not clutch enough and too stereotyped in his game to cause the upset.
MURRAYvsDIMITROV: Another intriguing match between the top two seeds of this section. Dimitrov was a tad passive against Baghdatis and it almost cost him dearly. We'll see if he will pay the price for going the distance in the previous round.
KYRGIOSvsSEPPI: The draw opened up nicely for the home crowd favorite, but he would be foolish to underestimate a Seppi who is playing well and keep is game as tight as a taxman purse.
PS: Known for its grueling heat, Melbourne will surprisingly offer very mild weather until at least Friday. That's good news for those who end up playing long matches during the day sessions.
The top half played the 3rd round and it resulted in a surprising amount of one sided affairs: only two of the 8 matches went to 4 sets! The only upset came to the hand of big server Muller who upset 19th seed Isner. With Simon's defeat to Ferrer it means there are no americans and no frenchmen in the fourth round. I have not checked, but I feel like it must not have happened that often. 4 Spaniards though!
The Round of 16:
DJOKOVICvsMULLER: The serbian only loss this year has been to Karlovic. Muller is the next best thing in this big serving / net rushing style.
LOPEZvsRAONIC: The spaniard really weaseled his way through. Will he be able to put pressure on Raonic who might have trouble returning the leftie's serves?
WAWRINKAvsGARCIA-LOPEZ: The spaniard summarily dismissed the swiss in the first round of the French last year. Will he be able to do the same with a more confident Wawrinka who played three good matches?
FERRERvsNISHIKORI: The brand of tennis played by Nishikori, aggressive and well constructed points, does wonder against Ferrer. The japanese player leads the head to head 6-3 and won all 4 of their 2014 meeting.
BERDYCHvsTOMIC: Both are in good form so it should be a nice opposition in styles.
ANDERSONvsNADAL: It's only the 2nd meeting between the two strangely. The south african has the type of big game that can bother Nadal, but it feels like Anderson is just not clutch enough and too stereotyped in his game to cause the upset.
MURRAYvsDIMITROV: Another intriguing match between the top two seeds of this section. Dimitrov was a tad passive against Baghdatis and it almost cost him dearly. We'll see if he will pay the price for going the distance in the previous round.
KYRGIOSvsSEPPI: The draw opened up nicely for the home crowd favorite, but he would be foolish to underestimate a Seppi who is playing well and keep is game as tight as a taxman purse.
PS: Known for its grueling heat, Melbourne will surprisingly offer very mild weather until at least Friday. That's good news for those who end up playing long matches during the day sessions.
Szlia
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We have our two quarters for the bottom half of the draw:
BERDYCHmade surprisingly light work of Tomic. He jumped out of the starting blocks for a 4-0 lead and then servers dominated until the end of the 2nd set. Berdych dominated the breaker and from a 2 sets to love lead, everything became easier. Tomic manufactured only one break point in the whole match.
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NADALshould probably give a good chunk of his price money to Anderson. The south african outrageously dominated the first set against a Nadal that could not hit a backhand to save his life, but still managed to hold serve 6 times (saving 6 break points in the process). When Anderson had to serve to force a breaker after losing a single point in his previous 5 service games, he gave Nadal the set with a double fault, two forehand errors and the worst volley you will ever see by a professional tennis player. Since Anderson also had the politeness to serve another shocker (choker?) early in the 2nd, Nadal regain a lot of confidence and found some of his tennis back to win in straight sets.
Berdych might not be the "clutchiest" player on tour but it feels like he would have made very light work of today's Nadal. How will quarter final day's Nadal be though?
MURRAYprevailed in a pretty epic match against Dimitrov. The Bulgarian stole the 2nd set in a tie-break after Murray served for it at 5-4 and lead 5-2 with a set point on the Murray serve, but a very resilient Murray (helped somewhat by a poor call by the chair umpire) found a way to turn the set around and bag it 7-5. I guess no one told him it was supposed to go into a decider...
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KYRGIOSprevailed 8-6 in the fifth after being lead two sets to love by a Seppi that will have some trouble sleeping.
It's very difficult to know what will happen with two pretty volatile players.
BERDYCHmade surprisingly light work of Tomic. He jumped out of the starting blocks for a 4-0 lead and then servers dominated until the end of the 2nd set. Berdych dominated the breaker and from a 2 sets to love lead, everything became easier. Tomic manufactured only one break point in the whole match.
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NADALshould probably give a good chunk of his price money to Anderson. The south african outrageously dominated the first set against a Nadal that could not hit a backhand to save his life, but still managed to hold serve 6 times (saving 6 break points in the process). When Anderson had to serve to force a breaker after losing a single point in his previous 5 service games, he gave Nadal the set with a double fault, two forehand errors and the worst volley you will ever see by a professional tennis player. Since Anderson also had the politeness to serve another shocker (choker?) early in the 2nd, Nadal regain a lot of confidence and found some of his tennis back to win in straight sets.
Berdych might not be the "clutchiest" player on tour but it feels like he would have made very light work of today's Nadal. How will quarter final day's Nadal be though?
MURRAYprevailed in a pretty epic match against Dimitrov. The Bulgarian stole the 2nd set in a tie-break after Murray served for it at 5-4 and lead 5-2 with a set point on the Murray serve, but a very resilient Murray (helped somewhat by a poor call by the chair umpire) found a way to turn the set around and bag it 7-5. I guess no one told him it was supposed to go into a decider...
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KYRGIOSprevailed 8-6 in the fifth after being lead two sets to love by a Seppi that will have some trouble sleeping.
It's very difficult to know what will happen with two pretty volatile players.
Szlia
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Two quarters from the top of the draw:
DJOKOVICmade life very difficult for Muller, by getting a lot of serves back in play, by serving extremely well himself and by having a machine-like efficiency once the rallies started, dispatching anything that dropped even remotely short and retrieving with great quality just about every ball. Still, Muller managed to hang in there with some great serves, some great volleys and a quality from the back of the court that really surprised me and easily explains why the guy skyrocketed to his best ranking ever as a 31 year old. Sadly for the underdog, he did not manage to reach a breaker, losing serve in the middle of the first and late in the 2nd and third. A shame when you consider he had 4 break points early in the third and when you consider his tie-break record for the year: played 12, won 10! Talking about record, that's the 23rd Grand Slam quarter final in row for Djokovic (a streak started in 2009's Wimbledon). Still some work to reach Federer's 36, but getting there: he need to keep on doing that until the French Open in 2018.
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RAONICproved that he has very good composure against Lopez. After losing a breaker in the 4th set in which he had two match points, including one on his own serve that started by a 200+ km/h first serve in the corner of the box that somehow came back just about as fast, he managed to keep his cool and play the fifth just as if nothing had happened. It's Lopez who blinked first and gifted an early break with a poor service game.
You let me know how this one goes, because I am not watching it!
WAWRINKAfound himself in a strange position against Garcia-Lopez. If you look at the shot production and at the athleticism, Wawrinka does everything better than Garcia-Lopez. It should be a done deal then, right? Wrong. Because Garcia-Lopez manages his shots and his game plan better. The spaniard manages to find a very good balance between offence and defense and makes very good shot selections in both departments. That allows him to keep things clean and tricky the whole way through, when Wawrinka's super aggressive game plan is bigger, more impressive, but full of ups and downs. That allowed from a pretty dramatic match, with Wawrinka pulling the rug under the feet of his opponents in the first set (winning a breaker after G-L served for the set), Garcia-Lopez surprising the swiss with some rear-guard action, extending the match to a fourth set from 4-2 down in the third and it all climaxed on the mother of turnabout: a fourth set breaker in which Garcia-Lopez lead 5-0 and then 6-2 but that Wawrinka somehow won 10-8 to avoid very dangerous fifth set.
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NISHIKORIalso does everything a little better than Ferrer, but the worst thing for the spaniard is that Nishikori's mastery of the court's geometry and his ability to find acute angles with his very reliable backhand totally prevent the spaniard to implement his favorite game plan, which is to start hitting forehands from his backhand corner. To be able to do that though you need short, poorly angled or floaty balls that give you the time to run around your backhand, but Nishikori's quality of shots just made that close to impossible. To had insult to injury, Nishikori played a pretty up and down match and it still ended 6-3 6-3 6-3 for the japanese player!
This could be a very interesting one, because if Nishikori is very good at implementing a game plan, Wawrinka's specificity is that there really is no clear game plan against him as the swiss has no shortage of weapons. They met at the same stage in the previous Slam and it ended in a close 5 sets win for Nishikori.
DJOKOVICmade life very difficult for Muller, by getting a lot of serves back in play, by serving extremely well himself and by having a machine-like efficiency once the rallies started, dispatching anything that dropped even remotely short and retrieving with great quality just about every ball. Still, Muller managed to hang in there with some great serves, some great volleys and a quality from the back of the court that really surprised me and easily explains why the guy skyrocketed to his best ranking ever as a 31 year old. Sadly for the underdog, he did not manage to reach a breaker, losing serve in the middle of the first and late in the 2nd and third. A shame when you consider he had 4 break points early in the third and when you consider his tie-break record for the year: played 12, won 10! Talking about record, that's the 23rd Grand Slam quarter final in row for Djokovic (a streak started in 2009's Wimbledon). Still some work to reach Federer's 36, but getting there: he need to keep on doing that until the French Open in 2018.
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RAONICproved that he has very good composure against Lopez. After losing a breaker in the 4th set in which he had two match points, including one on his own serve that started by a 200+ km/h first serve in the corner of the box that somehow came back just about as fast, he managed to keep his cool and play the fifth just as if nothing had happened. It's Lopez who blinked first and gifted an early break with a poor service game.
You let me know how this one goes, because I am not watching it!
WAWRINKAfound himself in a strange position against Garcia-Lopez. If you look at the shot production and at the athleticism, Wawrinka does everything better than Garcia-Lopez. It should be a done deal then, right? Wrong. Because Garcia-Lopez manages his shots and his game plan better. The spaniard manages to find a very good balance between offence and defense and makes very good shot selections in both departments. That allows him to keep things clean and tricky the whole way through, when Wawrinka's super aggressive game plan is bigger, more impressive, but full of ups and downs. That allowed from a pretty dramatic match, with Wawrinka pulling the rug under the feet of his opponents in the first set (winning a breaker after G-L served for the set), Garcia-Lopez surprising the swiss with some rear-guard action, extending the match to a fourth set from 4-2 down in the third and it all climaxed on the mother of turnabout: a fourth set breaker in which Garcia-Lopez lead 5-0 and then 6-2 but that Wawrinka somehow won 10-8 to avoid very dangerous fifth set.
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NISHIKORIalso does everything a little better than Ferrer, but the worst thing for the spaniard is that Nishikori's mastery of the court's geometry and his ability to find acute angles with his very reliable backhand totally prevent the spaniard to implement his favorite game plan, which is to start hitting forehands from his backhand corner. To be able to do that though you need short, poorly angled or floaty balls that give you the time to run around your backhand, but Nishikori's quality of shots just made that close to impossible. To had insult to injury, Nishikori played a pretty up and down match and it still ended 6-3 6-3 6-3 for the japanese player!
This could be a very interesting one, because if Nishikori is very good at implementing a game plan, Wawrinka's specificity is that there really is no clear game plan against him as the swiss has no shortage of weapons. They met at the same stage in the previous Slam and it ended in a close 5 sets win for Nishikori.
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Szlia
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I am looking forward to the interviews for that one, because a super nervous Berdych played his worst match of the tournament and that ended in 6-2 6-0 for him and it event looked like Nadal was about to retire and suddenly in the third set Nadal stopped making unforced errors, managed to return the wide sliced serve of Berdych and it's only because the Czech hit some clutch serves that he managed to reach a breaker and win it.
My guess is right thigh injury and that's when pain killers kicked in that he could start to play more freely... not that he would tell that in the press conference though.
My guess is right thigh injury and that's when pain killers kicked in that he could start to play more freely... not that he would tell that in the press conference though.
Szlia
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1st semi final:
BERDYCHscored a win over Nadal after a serie of 17 losses (a sad record he shares with Connors who lost 17 times to Lendl between '84 and '92). The spaniard made him a solid by playing very poorly, only getting his game going in the third set, but it was too little too late and Berdych sealed the deal in straight sets. Nadal will have to wait another year to win a second Australian Open. In press conference, Nadal attributed his abysmal performance of the first two sets solely to a lack of intensity, rhythm and confidence that come from the fact he played very few competitive matches in the last 7 months.
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MURRAYreally did not have to strain himself much to discard Kyrgios in straight sets. Credit to the young australian though, he played a pretty good match and kept fighting to the bitter end.
Both guys played well through the event. With a new coach this year (Murray's former sparring partner!) Berdych is trying to add a new dimension to his game and goes to the net a lot more than he used to. On paper, that's a very positive thing as he has been guilty for years of having a very one dimensional game and adding to it could be the thing he needs to finally beat the very best and win some Slams, but I feel that's a little too fresh against an expert at passing shots such as Murray and might prove costly.
BERDYCHscored a win over Nadal after a serie of 17 losses (a sad record he shares with Connors who lost 17 times to Lendl between '84 and '92). The spaniard made him a solid by playing very poorly, only getting his game going in the third set, but it was too little too late and Berdych sealed the deal in straight sets. Nadal will have to wait another year to win a second Australian Open. In press conference, Nadal attributed his abysmal performance of the first two sets solely to a lack of intensity, rhythm and confidence that come from the fact he played very few competitive matches in the last 7 months.
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MURRAYreally did not have to strain himself much to discard Kyrgios in straight sets. Credit to the young australian though, he played a pretty good match and kept fighting to the bitter end.
Both guys played well through the event. With a new coach this year (Murray's former sparring partner!) Berdych is trying to add a new dimension to his game and goes to the net a lot more than he used to. On paper, that's a very positive thing as he has been guilty for years of having a very one dimensional game and adding to it could be the thing he needs to finally beat the very best and win some Slams, but I feel that's a little too fresh against an expert at passing shots such as Murray and might prove costly.
Szlia
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We got our other semi:
WAWRINKAserved extremely well against Nishikori, dropping serve only once at the start of the third set with a cluster of unforced errors. On the other side of the net, Nishikori was a bit flat and only managed to keep it close in the third. In the end he was pretty close to turn the match into a thriller as he saved 5 match points in the 3rd set breakers from 1-6 to 6-6 and only just netted a drop shot at 6-6 that would have been a winner.
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DJOKOVICbagged a tight first set and from there the floodgate opened. Raonic could not manufacture a single break point in the match.
A new Australian Open classic. These two met in the previous two editions and both time it went the distance and even further (12-10 for Djokovic in 2013, 9-7 for Wawrinka in 2014). They also played 5 sets at the US Open in 2013. That being said, outside of these three matches, Djokovic easily dominated the swiss in the vast majority of their meetings with a 16-3 head to head record and 2 of those Wawrinka wins dating back from 2006! I hope for a close match, but a one side affair dominated by Djokovic is a distinct possibility.
PS: Fun fact about the other semi: Berdych leads Murray in their head to head 6-3!
WAWRINKAserved extremely well against Nishikori, dropping serve only once at the start of the third set with a cluster of unforced errors. On the other side of the net, Nishikori was a bit flat and only managed to keep it close in the third. In the end he was pretty close to turn the match into a thriller as he saved 5 match points in the 3rd set breakers from 1-6 to 6-6 and only just netted a drop shot at 6-6 that would have been a winner.
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DJOKOVICbagged a tight first set and from there the floodgate opened. Raonic could not manufacture a single break point in the match.
A new Australian Open classic. These two met in the previous two editions and both time it went the distance and even further (12-10 for Djokovic in 2013, 9-7 for Wawrinka in 2014). They also played 5 sets at the US Open in 2013. That being said, outside of these three matches, Djokovic easily dominated the swiss in the vast majority of their meetings with a 16-3 head to head record and 2 of those Wawrinka wins dating back from 2006! I hope for a close match, but a one side affair dominated by Djokovic is a distinct possibility.
PS: Fun fact about the other semi: Berdych leads Murray in their head to head 6-3!
Szlia
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Supremely strange first semi final: Berdych started super well and served from the first set, but from there started to be very nervous. He could not close the set on his serve, found himself in a breaker where a nervous and somewhat unlucky Murray could not turn the table on him... and instead of getting liberated by it and play freely like he dit out of the starting block, he got even more tight and played a terrible terrible set. It got a little better afterward, but Murray was well and truly into the match and did not lose his grip on it.
It should be noted that there was a little incident at the end of the first set as Berdych said to himself "Well done Tomas!" going to his chair and Murray apparently thought he said a sarcastic and insulting "Well done dumb ass!" to him! It goes to show the Scott was pretty nervous! I wonder if it affected Berdych in some way.
It should be noted that there was a little incident at the end of the first set as Berdych said to himself "Well done Tomas!" going to his chair and Murray apparently thought he said a sarcastic and insulting "Well done dumb ass!" to him! It goes to show the Scott was pretty nervous! I wonder if it affected Berdych in some way.
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For the 3rd year in a row at the AO the Djokovic vs Wawrinka match went the distance, but this one will not stay in memories as a classic because both players were very up and down and almost never played well at the same time. On top of that, the tight fifth set that everyone hoped for lasted exactly two games, both won by the World N?1, and from there the floodgate opened.
Sad stat of the day: the leading man of ATP tennis and favorite for the final on Sunday managed to play a whole set (that thankfully he lost) where he hit a total of ZERO winner.
Sad stat of the day: the leading man of ATP tennis and favorite for the final on Sunday managed to play a whole set (that thankfully he lost) where he hit a total of ZERO winner.
Szlia
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It still was a lot more entertaining than some of their previous meetings. There was some 'pushing the ball around without doing much of anything by fear of a counter-attack', but a lot less than usual between these two and there was a number of well constructed offensive points along with some high pace, hard hitting, super physical rallies with incredible shot production under extreme duress. Too bad indeed that Murray missed a number of opportunities, some where he made silly mistakes and some where he did everything right, but Djokovic came up with a brilliant or lucky shot to douse Murray's fire. These piled up and made him lose the plot and steer away from the narrow path to victory he had: aggressive play with variations of pace and effects.
On a side note, Martina Hingis (34) won the tile in mixed double along indian veteran Leander Paes (41) and that was not even close: They won their five matches in straight sets and got pushed to a breaker just the once! Not the most prestigious of titles, but still a Grand Slam title almost 19 years after the first one.
On a side note, Martina Hingis (34) won the tile in mixed double along indian veteran Leander Paes (41) and that was not even close: They won their five matches in straight sets and got pushed to a breaker just the once! Not the most prestigious of titles, but still a Grand Slam title almost 19 years after the first one.
