Oz: The Ladies

 

 

Most open draw ever.

 

Which, by the way, is a good thing. A great opportunity for colourful up-and-comers, woulda-coulda-should’aves, and other impossibly talented “close but no cigar” types.

 

My rooting interests remain limited to the three V’s: Venus, Vika & Vera.

 

But, really, any time JJ or Sveta want to start playing tennis again is fine by me.

 

 

 

 

LEGEND

Top Guns

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Young & Restless

Sympathy Vote

 

Q1	Woz/Dulko, Domi Wicky/Groth, Bartoli	Remember how Dulko took out Vika in R1 of RG? That clearly means she’ll take out Caro, her bestie, here.  And if not then I’m fairly certain one of those other hotheads will.
	Henin, Baltacha, BMS, Kuz Franny, Pironkova	Gotta think Henin will have her way with Kuz (R3) and then clean up here.
Q2	Venus, Petko Kanepi, Vesnina, Pova	Venus/Pova (R4) would be just dandy. Nostalgically so. Less confident in Pova than I am in Venus of getting there. But tending to think Pova will win if they do.
	LiNa, Rezai Hantuchova, Vika	If Li plays as well as she did in Sydney, she’ll take this section. Else Vika will..should…must.
Q3	JJ, Peng Kleybs, Krumm, ARad	Don’t be surprised to see JJ go down to Peng…or someone even lower ranked. Kleybanova’s match with Kim in Sydney is already a likely contender for one of the best of the year – kinda hoping she makes good.
	Petrova, Schnyder, Mak’va, Ana MJMS,Arn,Dinara/Kim	God help you if you aren’t just a little bit soz for Dinara. Although as the Sydney final showed Kim can be relied on to throw in the odd stinker (just ask Nadia). She’ll have to positively reek for Dinara to stand a chance – but it can happen.
Q4	Stosur,AChak,Kvitova Pennetta,Cirstea,Peer	Kvitova just won Brisbane and Stosur’s facing a Slam debutante speedster. Expect funnies to happen.
	Pavlyuchenkova,Kiri Safarova,Oudin,Bojo,Bepa	Same story as always – no real problems for Vera here other than herself – and she’s been holding her at bay now for over a year.

 

 

More non-bracketology:

 

-- Let’s be clear about this: Caro’s quarter is STACKED. Even if we concede that extrapolating a win for Dulko on the basis of Caro’s kinship with Vika is a wee bit fanciful – there’s still Domi followed by one of Wicks, Groth (runner up last week in Hobart) and Bartoli (deep-fried Dinara last week) to consider. After which Henin likely awaits in the QFs. All at a time when Caro’s been suffering some of her most depraved losses ever. Don’t be surprised to see her go down in week one. I believe rather than desire this.

 

-- Just about every media outlet has Kim as their “terra-firma” favourite. What, if not contrarianism, is the refuge of the hard core tennis blogger? Only, the problem with being a contrarian in this instance is it bears no relation to reality. See, much as I or anyone else might dislike it, Kim is the favourite. BY A LONG WAY. Yes, she goes certifiably crackers every once in a while and seriously, her serve is like an embarrassing, drunk relative at the best of times – but its not as if that happens very often. I’d say she’s got it out of her system in the Sydney final.

 

-- Having said that, outside of Kim the draw is impossibly wide open. Like I said, I’m thinking this is a good thing.

 

-- I have every faith in Bepa making another semi-final. I also have every faith in her losing to Kim Clijsters in straights once she gets there.

 

-- Let me make this easy by conceding that Venus’s best days are behind her. Let me also concede that, however much we might desire it,  with every passing year her chances of winning a Slam outside of Ingerland become slimmer and slimmer. Let me even concede that she’s ‘over the hill’ (whatever that means).

 

-- Your turn: you will concede that she was one set away from the final in the last Slam she played (losing to the best player in the draw); you will also concede that should she find her range, virtually every match she plays will be on her racket. You will will also concede anyone calling for her retirement should be boiled in baby oil. Deal?

 

-- Ask me why Vika hasn’t reached her Slam potential and I’ll show you a match involving Serena Williams. Ask me again and I’ll show you another. Can you see where I’m headed with this?

 

-- There simply remain too many unanswered questions re Justine Henin. But she looked good in Hopman Cup and doesn’t have a tough draw until the quarters by which time she should be good to go.

 

-- There simply remain too many unanswered questions re Maria Sharapova. Unfortunately, this time I don’t have a nifty rationalisation. Making week two will exceed my (and I suspect many others’) expectations.

 

-- Ana Ivanovic is on the up. Her form at the back end of last year and at Hopman Cup recently confirms it. Unlikely that she’ll be derailed by that recent stomach tear she suffered. What a shame that she’s drawn to meet Clijsters in R4.

 

-- Elena Dementieva will not feature in any match at any stage of the event (or indeed any Slam) ever again: Only in the second week will this truly sink in.

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Oz: The Blokes.

 

I have a lingering suspicion Rafa won’t win Aus, and it’s probably good on health and safety grounds that he doesn’t win all four, as it will probably signal a new age of Fedal guerrilla wars.

 

 

If he does  – you won’t hear the last of how the GOAT debate is effectively resolved. And to be fair, this will have been the most persuasive argument yet.

 

If he doesn’t – you might still persuasively resurrect a quantitative argument in Fed’s favour. (You might still choose to do that anyway)

 

In other words, nothing will have changed and we’ll all have missed out on something far better in favour of pointless, political posturing that would do the far right proud.

 

LEGEND

Top Guns

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Young & Restless

Sympathy Vote

 

 

Q1	Rafa, Feli Isner, Steps, Cilic	Easy peasy.
	Misha, Llodes Nalbie/Hewitt, Ferru	In accordance with AO philosophy Nalbie/Hewitt will go 5 sets finishing around sunrise the next day. Winner will be in no shape to play another match. Someone else will play Rafa in the quarters.
Q2	Sod, Istomin, Bellucci Ernie, Dolgo, Tsonga	I’ve got a contract out on the dickhead that suggested being bumped up to #4 would make life easy for Sod. WORST QUARTER EVER.
	Melzer, Delpo, Baggy GGL, Muzz	Delpo opens against Sela after which he’ll more than likely play Baggy. I don’t expect him to win. Muzz will pick up the pieces in a match that shouldn’t go five sets but will. Again: WORST QUARTER EVER
Q3	Berd, Kohls, Harrison, Reeshard Kolya, Nishi, Tipsy, Dasco	Kohls aside, no one here can be relied on to play to their seeding. Personally, I’m for a Nishikori/Harrison breakthrough. Make it happen.
	Almagro, Ljubicic Trotsky, Ivo, Djoko	Ivo likes playing tie-breaks and Trotsky almost put out Djoko in R1 of the last Slam he played him. Djoko’d be advised to hit the ground running.
Q4	ARod, Pico Wawa, Gael	Balanced section of the draw that will cancel each other out. Also, Gael will be diving though windows. Nothing else to see here folks.
	Fish, Querrey Montanes, Brown, Simon, Fed	Easy peasy

 

 

I don’t do bracketology, but here’s the next best thing:

 

-- Both Rafa and Fed are equal favourites. No one else is even close. Fed maybe marginally more so, simply because of the incredible (sub-Slam) winning streak he’s been on, and because it might take a little time for Rafa to work up to the impossibly high bar he set for himself last year.

 

-- Let’s be clear about this: Neither Fed nor Rafa have particularly tricky draws.

 

-- Rafa does have a greater proportion of players in his half that can beat both him and Fed – though he’s only on course to meet them in the second week, by which time most of them will have cancelled each other out.

 

-- If anything I’d say it’s  Sod that’s been shafted – wasn’t being bumped up to #4 meant to make things easy? Suffice to say that any gains made by avoiding Fed and Rafa before the semis are now truly vapourised. Ditto Muzz who has all of 1200 points to defend. Seriously – worst quarter ever.

 

-- If Djoko survives early encounters with Ivo and Serbian-first-national-in-waiting Trotsky, things oughta get easier. One assumes he’ll have played himself into form to fend off whatever muted challenge Berd or Kolya can bring.

 

-- Kohls will take down Berd in R2. You just know he will.

 

-- For what it’s worth, I think Fed v Lacko will be a good match – bagelling Rafa in Doha was no fluke.

 

-- For what it’s worth (not very much considering his draw) I’ll be rooting for Muzz. Maybe even over Sod. Muzz turns 25 this year. Winning his first Slam cannot go on being “only a matter of time” for what is now approximately half a tennis career. Seriously, people are starting to talk.

 

-- Don’t muddy the waters by expecting anything from Nalbandian and Delpo.

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Electric-Boogaloo

 

 

 

Let’s get the shirt out the way first coz I think that’s the “easy” part.

 

 

 

Funky, fluoro, eye-scarring fugliness I can deal with (remember this?). Early-80s scribbly, graffiti insignias (normally found on the side of subway trains) do at least have a certain fulsome, nostalgic fuzziness to recommend them.

 

 

 

Both at once? Didn’t think so either…not unless you’re auditioning for a part as an extra in a very poor remake of Electric Boogaloo (it was laughably rubbish the first time round).

 

Del Potro d. Lopez 67 76 76

 

The tennis was visceral, austere, overwrought, laugh-out-loud funny, severe-looking, perfectly nonsensical but also tantalisingly brilliant (at times).

 

It also went on for 3 hours and 20 mins.

 

The big take out must be that Delpo survived the encounter, as it seems, healthily and with his wrist (and his retinas) intact….had he lost it would have been no different.

 

 

It was a tactically-confounded performance that suggested the rustiness we all expected, but was also tinged with the traces of brilliance that once was.

 

I still don’t think he’ll be responsible for the mass culling of top seeds in the early rounds of the AO that some are geeing themselves up for.

 

Feli is not a top ten player – I’m not so sure he even qualifies as “2nd-tier” anymore. A top-tenner wouldn’t have given Delpo half as much room to breath, much less do his gangly-brawny thing. Ditto a less-talented stalwart like Daveed Ferrer.

 

All of which works out in Delpos favour of course – this is exactly the kind of testing, match-play he needs to fill up on ahead of Melbourne.

 

***

 

The other comeback isn’t going so well.

 

 

Bartoli d. Safina 60 61

 

After a perfectly commendable three set loss to Wickmayer in Auckland last week, Dinaroshka must have hoped to go at least one better – failing that a single competitive match would have been good.

 

She cannot have foreseen the two set lockout that Bartoli would impose upon her – evidently no one else did either.

 

Safina didn’t, by all accounts, play a “bad” match – that would only have been possible had she been allowed to play at all.

 

Here’s the thing: Marion does that that to people. And she often does it to the best of players.

 

But it’s when she does it to the best-loved players that the worst form of medieval contempt comes out.

 

 

I don’t get it.

 

From what I can tell she’s a ferociously talented, deliciously idiosyncratic player with oodles of attitude she’s not about to apologise to anyone for.

 

When she’s on, her strangely effective two-handed strokes are capable of smothering you with eye-wateringly acute-angled passes or simple, flat, uncompromising pace. All while remaining perma-rooted on the baseline.

 

She’s not a fashionista, she has an academic eccentric for a father, she’s not in the business of cloying, simpering lie-ins with the media, she can appear more aloof, stern and unfriendly on court than is perhaps necessary, and YES, she rubs (some) people up (though mostly her own compatriots) the wrong way.

 

BIG FREAKIN DEAL.

 

We’ve turned a blind eye to far worse, far more heinous, garlic-infused episodes of brattiness from so-called rising stars or media-luverlies, who all seem to get a free pass on account of their age, their standing in the game, or poster-girl looks.

 

Don’t pretend we haven’t been there.

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Sod ups the ante, Delpo’s return to Oz.

 

 

» Soderling wins Brisbane; up to world #4

 

Having not seen a single ball of live Aussie tennis, I’m going largely on 2nd hand reports when I say that Sod is in scintillating, intimidating form.

 

 

 

This time last year, nursing an elbow injury, he went out in the first rounds of both Chennai and, more worryingly, Oz itself: were we to include the two exhos he took part in prior to that, that would still make a profoundly dispiriting 2 out of 7 matches won (though one of them was a win over Federer :P).

 

It’s not Bercy, but ravaging your way through a 32-man draw with wins over Radek and ARod, all without dropping a single set, should, in theory, mean “good things” ahead of Melbourne.

 

Especially when you consider that it bumps him up ahead of Murray at #4 in the rankings. Amongst other things this means he’ll be seeded #4 in Melbourne and (as he only has a paltry 10 pts to defend there) have a very real shot at the #3 spot (Djoko reached the quarters and defends 360 pts).

 

He also won’t have to face either one of Rafa or Fed prior to the semis – a pleasure now handed down to Muzz at #5. Handy that.

 

Other weekend winners include Fed (avenging last years loss to Davy) in Doha, Stan in Chennai (any chance we can get through a single week free of domestic innuendo?), Kvitova over Petko (no dance) and Greta Arn in Auckland (you have no soul if you’re unhappy about this).

 

» Delpo + Nalbie will underwhelm rather than “upset” at AO

 

Look. I hate to be the spoilsport.

 

And it’s great to have Delpo back – lord knows he’s served his time.

 

 

 

It’s always an especially cruel form of pleasure to watch an under-ranked former Slam-winner/world-number-one working their way back to the big-time, blitzing through the early rounds taking down whatever big names are unfortunate enough to be drawn up against them (see Henin, Justine).

 

For all of that, I don’t think Delpo will be “upsetting” anyone just now. At least not in Oz.

 

[dodges rotten tomato]

 

Boo all you want. I’m happy to play the pantomime arch-villain.

 

Just know that I believe rather than desire this. I want him back as much as anyone out there, but  it normally takes longer than just the one event he’s playing in Sydney to get even a fraction of form back.

 

I know Justine reached the final of her first event back, but a) she wasn’t injured and was presumably playing more than Delpo’s been able to prior to her return, and b) she has a more compact, less injury-prone frame – comebacks for lumbering giants are always to be approached more gingerly and one step at a time (see Sharapova, Maria).

 

Ditto Nalbie, who always tends to blossom post Wimbledon. At the beginning of the year he normally invents new ways of disappointing us.

 

You’re right, I’m coming across as an arrant prick right now. But someone needs to say these things.

 

Needless to say I’m happy to be proved wrong about either, or both of the above.

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Hopman Cup: “I can cry like Nicolas, it’s a shame I can’t dress like him”

 

 

1) ‘No time like the present’, as they say, to jump right back into the tennis action (seriously there’s been, like, a lot for one week).

 

And in this case there is ACTUALLY no time like the present…

 

 

 

 

…..there’s never been ANY time like the present

 

 

 

 

Not when the ‘present’ is comprised of Burlesque drag-queens in pink Alice-bands and BMS in punkrock leggings.

 

 

 

Not when there are such “Ma-hoots of merriment” to be had.

 

In the single most candid act of conceited independence and “ungentleman”-like behaviour ever seen on a tennis court, Nicolas Mahut out-dressed BMS and out-hammed Novak Djokovic, a feat that was previously thought to have been impossible.

 

You had to be there, as they say, only, the Timezone difference meant that I wasn’t.

 

Same story every year: The best sh*t always goes down on someone else’s tennis watch.

 

2) #WildcardForMahut

 

Behold the power of the humble hashtag. Behold the breadth and outreach of a lowly retweet.

 

I always found those early reports of twitter “driving the force of political change” by giving the grassroots a voice and “a real shot at influencing opinion” to be grossly exaggerated, however well intentioned.

 

But if ‘the powers that be’ do eventually elect to grant Nicolas Mahut a WC it will have been both comforting and humbling to know that a hashtag conceived late one night by an energetic Aussie tennis blogger might have had something to do with it.

 

I was a twitter-naysayer who only begrudgingly joined to “test the waters”. And now I recant.

 

Oh sure there’s plenty of virtual vomit out there and lets not forget that Justin Bieber still consumes 3% of Twitter traffic.

 

I still say don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

 

Jon Snow Tweets for crying out cloud (very well I might add): Case closed.

 

3) Rafa Fever

 

When I heard that Rafa was playing doubles in Doha I cringed a little. Ok a lot.

 

 

Here was the same masochistic pattern of too-much-tennis and over consumption being played out before me all over again.

 

We know what Rafa’s capable of, we know how pathologically inclined he is to run down every last (worthless) ball – hell, that gig is 5 seasons old.

 

And now to hear he’s feverish. Sick.

 

Sometimes pulling out has nothing to do with a misplaced sense of respect or fair play – it’s just what you must do.

 

 

 

To that end, I’m glad Kolya put him out when he did, not least because I want Davy  to defend his points and start the season off well. The veiny-head demands it.

 

And, while we’re on it, I want to see if Rafa really can make four Slams (I have a lingering suspicion it might be too big an ask): maybe now he’ll actually rest up and focus on what might be the only chance he EVER has of making history (really making it, not just doing what Federer’s achieved three times over).

 

You’d think his team would know better.

 

4) LRob/Ana/Franny injured

 

For all the Mahoots-of-merriment it wasn’t all good news out of Hopman Cup overnight as Robson(thigh), Ivanovic (Stomach tear – ouch) and Franny (thigh) were all forced to pull out of their remaining matches.

 

We got Mahut-in-drag. And now Fate, it seems, will have its pound of flesh.

 

Not as much a fan of Ana as I am of her forehand, but seriously, the girl can never seem to catch a break.

 

Here’s hoping she’s healed up in time for the AO. A fully functioning Ana is no bad thing, as we saw against Justine only yesterday.

 

5) Masha out early in Auckland

 

As per the newly agreed James LaRosa rooting code of conduct there’ll be no qualifying, limiting or sullying of any form of Greta Arn’s win over Pova.

 

A win is a win as they say.

 

All the same, I did think this was a tournament Pova had a real shot of winning.

 

It was heartening  to see her taking her Aussie Open prep more seriously than she has in years gone by – a win here would have been a real boon ahead of Melbourne and a great way to start the new season after a year that was, frankly, more than just a little disappointing.

 

And now she’s turned down a Sydney WC – why does that worry me so?

 

6) Uh…Big Rob/Berd……remember them?

 

No one’s saying anything about these two – a little surprising considering how heavily they rocked the boat last year. Key players, one might say.

 

Alright by me just so long as they can keep it up: Berd for Chennai and Sod in Brisbane. Roddick over Sod is the only exception I might entertain.

 

7) And Petra Kvitova for Brisbane

 

I like Petra; she’s young, talented, unpretentious and, in common with most of my faves, can come apart at the seams or be completely unplayable, both with equal likelihood.

 

 

 

A win at this level might be just the breakthrough she needs to harness her unruly talent.

 

I‘m not completely sold on Petko or her game…I don’t mind the dance  so much(although after a 60 61 win over a sickly Dokic, really?) but the hype is, frankly, beginning to deafen me and I find much of her online presence, a little “try-hard”.

 

Not to say that I don’t credit her for trying.

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2011: Tennis Confessional.

 

Heck….has it actually been one month?

 

I don’t tend to do that good a job of staying away during the off-season, but the truth is that this year, I really needed some time apart.

 

I’d love to say this has something to do with my flamboyant Howard Hughes  lifestyle – the truth is I’d simply had enough.

 

 

Confession #1: You really can have too much of a good thing (That’s right, I said it).

 

The Fedal charity gig (raising over $5M in various fine causes – nice work gents) was particularly excruciating –  sitting through three engineered sets of pseudo-tennis twice, after a well-rounded, fulfilling season that actually ended on a good note smacks of the type of gluttony that leaves you feeling bloated, gaseous and in my case, nauseous.

 

Only when the start of the official season barely registered, did I sense something might be drastically wrong. Fortunately tennis-rehab came in the form of one of last years best WTA matches (Henin v ElenaD in R2 of Aus) – that’s right, it took a replay of a match that was played 12 months ago to reignite my interest in a sport I’m meant to enjoy enough to spend a criminal amount of time writing about.

 

 

 

Do a youtube search and you’ll find reams and reams of highlight reels – that’s no mistake: almost every other point was a highlight.

 

It was “only” two sets of tennis – but those two sets were uncontaminated, crystallised excellence.

 

All of which isn’t just a very long way of telling you how scandalous I find it that it didn’t even feature as a nominee for match of the year on any 2010 poll anywhere (not once). But rather to highlight that things rather faltered for the WTA from that point on  - I’d go as far as to say that all of the best women’s tennis of 2010 was played in its first month.

 

And that’s only the start of it, because I’m afraid:

 

Confession #2: I don’t consider 2010 to have been a vintage year of tennis.

 

I don’t expect Rafaelites to agree of course – come to think of it, I don’t “expect” anyone to.

 

It’s all subjective after all and I’m even willing to concede I might be wrong.

 

Even so, that many false starts, failed deliveries & soggy reams of disappointment (often from the highest of levels) speaks more of “fug” than it does “vintage”.

 

And besides, I figure we’re done pontificating on how great it all was.

 

1) All the best women’s tennis was played in its first month.

 

See above. ElenaD/Henin (Aus - R2) remains my personal fave, though the Serena/Henin final and the Brisbane final between Henin & Kim weren’t far behind.

 

The French Open final, perhaps, may have recaptured something of the drama but it remains the case that nothing came close in quality to what we saw in that very promising start to the season.

 

2) Men’s Grand Slam finals (and two of the women’s) were strictly one-sided affairs – only of any lasting interest to those strongly invested in Rafa or Fed.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with that and both the Aus & USO men’s finals were spellbinding if only in a torturously one-sided way.

 

 

Doesn’t stop a season devoid of a competitive (if not a five set) men’s Slam final from being, well…just a wittle-bit rubbish.

 

3) The Spectre of Delpo

 

Only including this for the sake of completeness, because as far as I’m concerned he could have taken off the entire year to recover from what can, after all, turn into a career-ending injury(history is full of the stinking carcasses of careers blighted by an ill-conceived desire to return too soon).

 

Even so, that didn’t stop me feeling twitchy when he (those two matches towards the end of the year not withstanding) went and did just that.

 

4) Muzz won another seventy billion Masters titles….and still less than precisely one Slam.

 

Seen it, been there, done that. NEXT.

 

5) Henin’s comeback miscarriage

 

Justine probably deserves more generosity on my part considering she gave us some of the best matches of this year and spent much of its second half with a fractured elbow.

 

 

All the same, I’m calling fug on a year in which she plays her best three matches in its opening month – one of which was in the opening week of the season.

 

Harsh, I know – fracturing her arm is hardly her fault though I’m not sure her win in Stuttgart was terribly convincing either.

 

6) Player of the year: Kim Clijsters…WTF result of the year Petrova d. Clijsters 60 61.

 

Its been almost 12 months yet no one’s come up with any more cogent an explanation for what’s unanimously held to be the single most WTF result of the year, than that Kim can be both alarmingly good and unnervingly bad – both it seems in equally disturbing measure.

 

I’ve mostly given up trying, yet what's remained overlooked is that Petrova played an exceptional match – something that got drowned out  by the pitch-black humour surrounding Kim’s performance.

 

 

 

I don’t have a problem with Kim being voted POY – in fact I was rather grossed out by the redundant groans of disgust at Serena being passed over.

 

Newsflash: Serena stepped on a shard of glass and it ended her year after playing all of six events. Sad, but that precludes her from POY contention (YES even if the two events she won were Slams). Sometimes it’s not a conspiracy.

 

Contrast that with Kim winning the USO, the SEC, Miami, Cincy AND Brisbane – a title at every level. She’s not my favourite player but arguing against those numbers is futile and smacks of sour grapes.

 

Despite all of that, Kim still has a certain ‘transient’ quality to her game that no one’s quite been able to put their finger on - who’s completely convinced we won’t see more WTF results from the Player of 2010? I know I'm not.

 

7) Djoko’s Title “Tally”

 

Remember when Djoko won Dubai early on last year?

 

It would be one of only two singles titles he would win in 2010 – both of them ATP 500s.

 

To put this into perspective, Djoko won a Masters title and reached the final of four others in 2009. He also won two Masters titles in each of the two years preceding that, which makes this the first time since 2006 that he’s not won a single Masters title.

 

Disappointing for a season in which he played some of the best tennis we’ve seen from him in over two years – though admittedly most of it was towards its back end.

 

8) Rafa’s clay-court clean sweep

 

Rafa’s clay seasons are always laughably one-sided but this year he won all three Masters and RG – all for the loss of only two sets. That would be two sets over the entire clay season.

 

 

That’s not domination, that’s tennis sacrilege.

 

As pleased as I was for him, that stat also speaks of underperformance from the rest of the tour (especially the top guys).

 

It’s ok, we can say that now. The dust has settled on Rafa’s year.

 

9) Greatest “Diss-appointment of” 2010?

 

Whither comeback queens Masha, Henin? Whither Sveta? Marin?? Those last two, in particular, have a lot to answer for.

 

Not according to tennis.com, who pronounced Dinara, who spent the better part of the year out with a bad back, their “Biggest Disappointment of 2010”.

 

They took the edge off it by noting that “few believe Dinara belongs outside the top 50”, but that headline is plain irresponsible.

 

Call me cynical, but if Serena isn’t POY because she only played six events then Dinara’s not DOY for precisely the same reason.

 

10) When is a scandal not a scandal?

 

Hey psssst! Have a hot tip for ya.

 

You ready? Get this – Rafael Nadal has just expressed a desire to win the Australian Open.

 

[furious scribbling noises]

 

Got that? Not only that [breathless] ….not only that….he’s even said he intends to try his level best to defeat whomsoever he should face in the final.

 

There’s more where that came from:  next week I’ll be revealing how the UK’s most savage spending cuts since the 1920s are likely to prove “deeply unpopular” and how all 33 of the freed Chilean miners were said to be “happy to be reunited with their loved ones”.

 

 

More of an off-court disappointment this one.

 

From what I can tell, if Fed passed on any “inside information” at all, it’s that he allegedly intimated to “someone” (we don’t even know this was Forstmann) that he intended to try and defeat Rafael Nadal in the 2007 RG final.

 

That’s about as “shady” as the Mercurian stratosphere and about as “scandalous” as Rupert Everett in drag.

 

If there’s a story here at all, it’s how easy it is to drag a high profile name into what seems to be nothing more than litigious hustling between the IMG kingpin and an estranged former business associate.

 

And how willingly irresponsible members of the media lapped it all up.

 

11) Demmie’s Retirement

 

The good news: I’m no longer in denial about this.

 

***

 

Still largely playing catch-up tennis-wise.

 

Normal service will resumptionalise in due course.

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London WTF: The Coefficient of Awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

Fallacy #1: Rafa’s tiredness resulted in his three set loss to Federer.

 

"I'm not going to say I lost the match because I was tired. I feel I lost because I played against a very good Roger Federer on one of his favorite surfaces. And when he's playing like this, it's very difficult to stop him, no?"

 

He may or may not have been tired. The fact is that it’s irrelevant: If Rafa doesn’t cite fatigue as a factor then no one else gets to either (N.B. this is not the same as saying he couldn’t possibly have been tired – very important distinction).

 

Before you start citing Madrid 09, remember Rafa (and Nole) played over 4 hours of clay court tennis that day – the longest three setter ever played, and, I daresay, the best – with only 24 hours to recover. You’ve got to be pretty obtuse and/or naive to think fatigue played no part there.

Slams are a different animal as they offer up a very welcome 48 hour rest period. I know many amongst the “far-right” of tennis fandom like to pretend ‘roids are the only possible way to explain Rafa’s incredible recovery in between the semis and final of Aus 09. The altogether more boring and factually inconvenient explanation is that 48 hours is more than enough recovery time for any athlete at this level, let alone someone as physically gifted as Rafa.

 

The point is that this one belongs in neither of those two categories and has much more to do with the electrifying way in which Fed began the match.

 

 

Fallacy 2: Roger Federer has “figured out” Rafa targeting his backhand.

 

Newsflash: Targeting Fed’s backhand will not cure male pattern baldness.

 

With the amount of success Rafa has had targeting Fed’s backhand over the years it is perhaps understandable that it has become something of a goto-play for him.

 

It is, however, a mistake to confer upon it the pseudo-mystical properties it seems to have acquired in some quarters.

 

Any strategy is only as good as it’s execution.

 

And no strategy can account for days when Fed’s backhand is nuke.

 

On the other hand…

 

Newsflash: Fed winning the final by timing his backhand better than he had all year does not suddenly make targeting it a “failed strategy”.

 

Does Andy Roddick stop serving big because he’s playing Roger Federer?

 

Do we stop believing in climate change because of a freak snowstorm?

 

I only bring it up because three or four games into the final there was a rush of dickheads calling for Rafa to abandon his goto-play because it seemed Fed had finally “figured it out”.

 

Fed has no more figured out Rafa making his backhand the frontline of his attack than we’ve figured out climate change.

 

This is not his fault – you don’t “figure out” systemic problems; you mitigate against them and minimise their impact.

 

Fed’s done that pretty well over the years, but will still for the most part be fighting an uphill battle. Every so often he’ll play a match in which nothing Rafa does will seem to work.

 

That’s no reason to abandon what’s proven to be the greatest-ever play against the great-ever player.

 

 

 

The thing about form…

 

There was, in any case, something more subtle at work. Subtle enough not to feature on the blinkered radars of those that would scream “fatigue” in the immediate aftermath of the Rafa/Muzz semi: Rafa’s form, as good as it was this week, wasn’t quite up there in the stratosphere of his best moments of this year.

 

And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.

 

Nor should stating that be seen as some kind of last ditch, madcap attempt at explaining away Rafa’s loss – let us please not insult either of them by doing that (for the record, I’m also one of the few people that believe Fed wasn’t all there in the first two sets of the Wimbledon 2008 final too).

 

Form is an incredibly complex, divisive, misunderstood and mysterious force – quite possibly the only thing we know about it is that we know nothing about it. Conventional wisdom says it feeds on momentum (or should that be the other way round?) but it can blossom just as well with adequate rest and careful preparation.

 

It’s no different for the top two players of all time,

 

Fed has very publicly “struggled” (by his standards) with form this year. Just one week ago his entire season was being defined (by some his own fans I might add :-( ) by the deathly hallows of those infernal five unconverted match points. Now, three out of three converted break points and some unspeakably acute-angled shoulder high backhand winners later, it seems he’s a dead cert for the Aussie Open. Neither are true, of course.

 

He (along with Rafa) simply has a higher ‘coefficient of awesome’ than most everyone else and that gives him a better handle on his form than the overwhelming majority of the tour.

 

During his worst spells this gets him through matches he has no business winning.

 

During his best spells we get to see him go through a string of top eight players for the loss of only one set.

 

This probably won’t be the most daring or captivating take on this match you’ll read all week – doesn’t make it any less true: this was a straightforward question of form – and Fed’s was faaar better all week.

 

 

Parting Shots…

 

1) Fed was far and away the best player this week – his opening set against Nadal might even have been his best this year. Special mention to Sod for playing the single most competitive set of tennis out of any of his pre-Rafa opponents.

 

2) Both Nadal and Federer are firm favourites for the Aussie Open.

 

No one benefits from any special momentum apart from a few small events in its lead up. As always, players with the firmest possible grasp on their form stand the best possible chance of harnessing it. Guess which two they are?

 

3) That Fed wound up rather than down towards the end of the season and found his most nefarious and lurid form at the WTF is due in large part to the input of the Cone, but is ultimately about Fed’s own coefficient of awesome.

 

4) “Fed's Back”…….*confused*….. I get that he struggled with converting the odd break point this year, but, really, when did he ever go away?

 

Unless you think he’s somehow culpable for losing at the Slams to three of the world’s best players having breakout days when no one could touch them. In which case you’re very silly indeed and I leave you to your…..silliness.

 

What this does underline (once again) is just how incredible that record of 23 consecutive semis is.

 

 

5) Lest we underestimate how badly Rafa wanted this one… 

 

He’s a dab hand at disguising his emotions but he looked pretty welled-up when filmed walking along the corridor back to his locker room immediately after the final.

 

I can only assume he broke out the waterworks behind closed doors – we know this happened after losing to Fed at Wimbledon in 2007.

 

And if you still need proof you only need look at……

 

6) The hyperbolic way in which Rafa lost his very Spanish rag.

 

“Don’t get me angry…you won’t like me when I’m angry….”

 

 

I don’t get it……did Carlos Bernardes ask to kiss his sister?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words are exchanged with Carlos

 

 

Sterner words were exchanged in English with the ATP backboard supervisor

 

All 19 Spanish matador dolls find their way out of the pram.

 

 

 

Rafa sprouts limbs that wrap up the match in warp speed.

 

 

There’s something very elemental, spontaneous and disproportionate about these outbursts.

 

They don’t come round very often but you don’t want to risk being mowed down when they do.

 

It’s all completely over the top….and yet a small part of you is left wanting the T-Shirt to show your grandchildren.

 

7) Muzz played the better semi-final….Rafa won because he has a higher coefficient of awesome.

 

I’m still broken up about this one :-(

 

Match of the year? Perhaps. The Fed/Djoko USO semi seemed to me to be a higher quality encounter. There was way too much errant nonsense from Rafa in that second set.

 

I’ll settle for it being the best match of Muzz’s career.

 

 

 

Muzz had made no secret of his desire to play Rafa but anyone that thought that translated as “PRIVATE MUZZ, REPORTING FOR SPANISH MINION DUTIES SAH-YESSAAH!” – and there were plenty – was to be sorely disappointed just six games in.

 

All of the usual stuff was in fine nick…the double hander was firing, the slicing especially pernicious, the defence totally kickass.

 

What was really surprising is the other heavy artillery he brought. Yes it seems Muzz does do heavy artillery.

 

In fact, I love it when he realises he has the best first serve in the top four – you heard that right. Everyone knows this, yet it continues to be treated like some confused truth that dare not speak its name.

 

And that forehand I’m always complaining about not being a ‘putaway shot’? Yeah forget that – I like to talk a lot.

 

He even bounced back from the heartbreak of losing that high quality first set in a tie break, when form, his temperament, and suspect stamina would suggest it was time to bow out. It certainly derailed Rafa who would go on to lose the 2nd set 6-3.

 

In another words he ticked all the right boxes and some other ones we didn’t even know about.

 

And yet he lost (mostly on account of Rafa combusting spontaneously at the match’s most pivotal moments).

 

Moment of silence, if you please, and a Celtic Lament.

 

 

 

Open Question: Does he even need a coach? I say he does alright without one. *shrugs*

 

(Images: Getty)

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