#212 - aussie open wrap-up

right now i'm watching the australian open men's singles final... roger vs. rafa, and i realized that i haven't posted at all about the aussie open yet. well, i've been busy these past two weeks (a lot of that due to struggling to keep up with all the tennis on espn as "live" as possible so i don't see the news reports before i watch the matches) so here's my aussie open wrap-up (starting from the beginning), written live while i watch the final match of the tournament.
1. maria sharapova not here! wah. the defending champ is still nursing her shoulder after her season-ending surgery before the us open last year... hope she'll be back soon... really hope.

2. hewitt vs. gonzalez - this was a 1st round match... ouch. tough for both of them, hewitt was a former no. 1, australian, trying to make a go of it in the waning years of his career, and gonzalez was the aussie open runner-up (to federer) in 2007 and played absolutely fantastically the whole tournament. after five great sets gonzalez won it (deservedly) but it was high quality stuff... too bad for hewitt and the homecrowd though.

3. venus loses in the second round. this was a total shocker to me, i thought she had looked real good in the second half of last year (since her win at wimbledon), but she does have some monster upsets in her history so i guess here's one more to add to the list.

4. the very next day ana ivanovic goes out! she was the runner-up last year and so much fun to watch (plus she's pretty...), but she hasn't been doing very well at all after her win at the french open last year so let's hope she gets back on track...

5. roger federer vs. tomas berdych - fourth round match, federer came out flat and dropped the first two sets... when have you ever seen federer down 0-2 (besides against nadal, of course)? but this is not the roger federer of 2008, it's a new year and this is a new roger federer and he comes back to win it in five sets, awesome.

6. jelena dokic - the return of jelena dokic, around the year 2000 she was a great up-and-comer on the women's side, but it was her father that made the most news, he was completely domineering over her and made tons of controversial statements against other players, tournaments and even to their own australian tennis organization. so it was a great story for her to break away from her father, become independent, even start playing tennis again, and here, in her first major tournament back, in her (now) home country, to get all the way to the quarterfinals. nice story.

7. andy roddick - boy is it good to see roddick playing well again. not only playing well but also doing well in a big tournament. this year roddick got to the semifinals, beating novak djokovic (the defending champion) in the quarters and playing well against federer, but federer just had too much game for andy. it's definately a match-up thing with federer, but regardless, roddick should be a serious competitor for every hard court event and it's good to see him back actually making that happen.

8. fernando verdasco - a couple of years ago i watched a davis cup match between roddick and fernando verdasco and i said whoa, this guy's my new second favorite (because my favorite will always be roger federer, of course). but verdasco had game. it took him awhile to put it all together (maybe i saw that match 2 years ago?) but take a look and what he can do now. i love this guy's game, if there's anyone to try an emulate as a young kid playing tennis i'd pick verdasco (because federer's way out of anyone's league obviously, haha). but finally doing well in the big situations, he was the hero of spain at the very end of last year with his title clinching win in the davis cup and i guess that gave him the confidence to let his game explode 'cause he looked fantastic at this year's aussie open. he smashed opponents all the way to the semifinals (beating no. 4 andy murray and no. 5 and last year's runner-up tsonga) and almost beat nadal (and i love anyone who gives nadal trouble) in a fantastically played 5 hour and 14 minute 4 set semifinal (verdasco actually won 192 total points to nadal's 193). this guy's gonna have a great year i hope because i wanna see him make some noise in the big tournaments. he'll be in to the top 10 for the first time in his career next week (at no. 9 probably) and i hope he continues to do well.

9. serena williams is a beast. y'know that picture in my previous post? you gotta see the live action shot of that... scary. seriously though, it's so good to see her dominating again, i want her to dominate. women's tennis has seriously been lacking a real no. 1 since justine henin retired before the french open (when she was no. 1) and since then the power vaccuum that created has been driving the women's game crazy. but here comes serena (finally) to step up, win the championship and retake the number 1 ranking. it's about time. she also won the doubles title with venus... another "it's about time" for them, to be playing doubles, cause it seems like everytime they do, they win the whole thing. *PS - good day for americans in doubles, bob and mike bryan also won the men's doubles title so the williams and bryans sweep men's and women's doubles titles in australia.

10. roger vs. rafa - right now it's the second set... rafa won the first set 7-5 and it's on serve with rafa trying to get even serving from behind at 3-4. and here i am typing and cheering each time roger wins a point. trying to will roger to victory. i mean, rafa just has federer's number, all of his strengths play right into federer's weaknesses and all of federer's best plays are absolutely ineffective against nadal. WOO! okay, federer just broke nadal and he'll serve for the second set at 5-3.

seriously though, in my eyes federer's the greatest of all time, if he wins this title he'll tie pete sampras' record of 14 grand slam titles (neither pete nor roger have won the french open, but roger's been in the finals twice and pete's never gotten close). but this match-up with nadal is just too much for federer. granted, the match-up with the now no. 1 ranked nadal is too much for pretty much everyone on tour, but federer just can't seem to get the wins. WOO! federer just held serve to win the second set 6-3 so now it's tied at 1 set all and we're going to the 3rd set.

whew, i want roger to win this one, and not only that, i want him to turn this rivalry around and start dominating nadal, i don't like that guy. i mean, he's probably a good guy and you can't deny that his game is pretty superhuman, but i just don't like him. i might be the sleeveless shirts all the time (including at wimbledon, tsk tsk), or the girl pants, or the long, nappy hair, he just looks dirty all the time. at least he's wearing a shirt with sleeves for this aussie open, but he's wearing shorts with little rhinestones all over it... what's up with that? girlie. haha, but i don't like his game, or the grunts, or the faces he pulls. all of that is in such opposition to roger, who flies around the court quietly and looks like he hardly ever sweats. roger's game is just so much more likeable to me that i want him to win everytime.

okay, now it's tied at one set all and it's 5-5 in the third set... so i'm gonna quit it with the blogging, post this up and watch the rest of the match, go roger!