Aussie Kim

Our Aussie Open 2011 Women's Singles champion:

Kim cleans up well, huh? But couldn't they have chosen a nicer place for this photoshoot?

For the first hour of the women's final, it looked like Kim finally met her match in Li Na, who was was trying to make history by being the first player from an Asian country to win a grand slam singles title. Li was matching Kim's baseline and defense game, and wasn't showing any signs of nerves - which is what I predicted would hinder her from winning the final match. But Kim stayed steady, and slowly worked her way into the match. Kim was a point away from going down a set and a 4-2, but she fought her way back and eventually won 6 straight games, and by the time Li got her game together again, Clijsters already built a good lead and cruised in the last game to claim her 1st Australian Open title, and 4th grand slam singles title overall.

Li definitely acquitted herself well in Australia, not just because she showed that she has the game of a top 5 player (she was on an eleven-match winning streak, including a straight set win

over Kim two weeks ago in Sydney), but she showed that she also had the great personality of a global athletic star. Her post-match interviews (especially the one right after she beat world #1 Caroline Wozniacki) were comedy gold, and she still kept her head high after her loss in the final, which is a good sign that she won't be continuing the rest of the year being deflated about missing this chance.

Back to Kim, she has now won the last two grand slam events and is moving up to the #2 ranking this coming Monday, just 140 points off from Caroline's #1 spot. With Justine Henin's retirement (sad face) and Serena Williams's injury still preventing her from returning to the tour, will Kim be the favorite to win Roland Garros? If she does, that's gonna be her 3rd straight grand slam title, and a win at Wimbledon (where former champs Serena, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova all are nursing, or playing below their best because of, injuries) will give Kim a career Grand Slam, and her very own Kim Slam.

Suddenly, the WTA Tour got a lot more interesting this 2011.

Split Racket and Some High/Lowlights

LOL. I bet Marat is jealous this never happened to him.

The first two rounds of the Australian Open is now done, and we've seen some pretty great matches so far. The best one yet is the 4 hour, 48 minute Nalbandian vs Hewitt first round match. I'm not a huge fan of either players (and I particularly dislike Hewitt's special brand of annoying-ness.), but this was a really high quality, high-tension match. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the first round match between Kim Clijsters and Dinara Safina, which lasted 44 minutes, ending with the score 6-0, 6-0. It's definitely a heartbreaking loss for Lil Sis Dinara, who less then 2 years ago was the world #1. Now, after her 1st round loss, she's projected to drop out of the top 100. To give Dinara a break, let's just focus on Ana Ivanovic's heart-breaking loss to Russian Ekaterina Makarova. Ana started the match well, winning the first set, but Makarova started to find her shots and went on to upset Ivanovic, 10-8 in the 3rd set. It was a shame since Ana's form is definitely starting to pick up. She was hitting huge forehands winners and was really going for riskier shots. Unfortunately for her, so was Makarova and on the crucial points, Ana just fell short while Makarova remained solid.

The match highlights (or lowlights, in Dinara's case) are here:

US Open Catch Up

I have some catching up to do.

Rafael Nadal completes his collection of grand slam trophies by taking his first ever US Open title, after he defeated Novak Djokovic, who remains a one-slam wonder. Kim Clijsters increases her US Open title count to 3 by beating Vera Zvonareva, who is suddenly a 2-time grand slam finalist after also reaching the finals earlier at Wimbledon.

I was predicting a Roger win, since he usually does so well at the US Open (5 straight wins followed by a finalist showing last year), but he didn't play up to his level in the semi against Novak. On the women's side, I predicted a Caroline Wozniacki-Victoria Azarenka final, with Vika taking the win, since they both played so well on the US hardcourt tournaments right before the US Open. But Vika fainted during her second round match (due to a mild concussion she sustained before the match), while Caro was upset by Vera in the semis after decimating the draw from the 1st round to the quarterfinal (with an impressive win over Maria Sharapova.) Oh well... Maybe the blonde BFFs can take the grand slam rivalry at next year's US Open.

Meanwhile, Rafa has a rare chance to hold all four grand slam titles if he wins at the Australian Open. The last player to do that was Serena Williams, last 2002-2003. With his new serve, Fed on the "bonus stage" of his career, and contemporaries Djokovic and Murray unable to consistently contend at grand slams, looks like he's got a good chance to do so.

Congrats, Kim and Rafa!

Other winners:

• The Bryan Brothers, Mike and Bob, won the men's doubles over India/Pakistan's Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi
• Kazakh Yaroslava Shvedova and American Vania King won the women's doubles, their second consecutive grand slam doubles title
• Liezel Huber and Bob Bryan won the mixed doubles
• On the juniors side, American Jack Sock won the boys title and Russian Daria Gavrilova won the girls title.
• Shingo Kuneida won the men's wheelchair event, while Esther Vergeer won the women's wheelchair title. Vergeer's records will put Roger's to shame. She has been unbeaten since 2003, and is currently on a 394-match winning streak.

p.s. US Open 2009

I've been a bit busy the past 3 weeks (with work, with bugging/harassing PLDT customer service about my suddenly non-existent phone and internet connection, and finally, with watching out for crazy ass Ondoy), so I haven't been able to write about the semifinal and final matches of the US Open... and if you kept up with it, there were some crazy matches there.

After 3 weeks, I've finally been able to catch up with work (I think), my phone and net has finally been fixed (after 1 whole week, DAMN YOU PLDT!), and Ondoy and his evil stepbrother Pepeng have gone away, so I think this might be a good time to catch up...

On the men's side, Juan Martin Del Potro wins his first grand slam in sensational manner, beating 5-time US Open champ and world #1 Roger Federer in 5 sets, 3–6, 7–6 (7–5), 4–6, 7–6 (7–4), 6–2. JMDP previously defeated #2 Rafael Nadal in the semifinals in straight sets, 6–2, 6–2, 6–2. That was really huge result for the (then) 20 year-old Argentine. He joins Roger, Rafa and Novak as the recent Grand Slam winners, and puts himself firmly in contention for the grand slams next year (I'm putting Murray out of that circle until he bucks the trend and actually wins one.)

Congratulations JMDP!

Anyway, while DelPo won that tournament, I have post this, since it's definitely one for the Hall of Fame Career highlight reels:

On the women's side, Caroline Wozniacki got to her first grand slam final by beating Belgian Yanina Wickmayer 6-3, 6-3. That's a great result for Caroline, who's always been on the brink of a grand slam breakthrough the past two years. Unfortunately for her though, she ran into a more formidable Belgian, Kim Clijsters. If at the start of the year, someone said that Kim would win a grand slam in 2009, I think even Kim would've laughed at that person's face... But after playing in only 2 other WTA tournaments this year, Kim mounted an amazing career comeback by winning her second grand slam title, becoming the first non-ranked player to win the US Open, and the first mother to win a grand slam since 1980.

2005 and 2009 US Open Champ Kim Clijsters with daughter Jada

Kim did it by beating Venus in the fourth round and Serena in the semis too.

Speaking of Serena, it wasn't just the semifinal match that she lost...

Totally lost her mind too.

Before the semis start...

Just a quick review of the results just before the semifinal matches start... (it's been raining here in Manila the whole day and looks like it's been raining in NY too, the Kim-Serena semifinal match has been delayed by rain.)

On the men's side, Andy Murray followed the other Andy in an early exit, losing to the 16th seed Croatian Marin Cilic. Though Murray has had good results the past months (and even overtook Rafa for the #2 ranking), he hasn't been playing his best tennis (in the matches I've seen him play, at least). Losing to Cilic in straight sets in the 4th round might be a sign that he's not coping well with the "Can he win a Grand Slam"/"He's #2 over Rafa" pressure, or it might just spur him on to lift his game to match Roger and Rafa in the Grand Slams. The bottom line for him though is 0 Grand Slams for 2009.

But you know what the best news here is? We won't have to see this face while watching the US Open Men's Final:

/cheapshot

Cilic went on to lose to JMDP (who is my pick as the finalist who'll play Roger in the final) in the quarters. Roger will face Novak Djokovic in the first semis, while JMDP is still waiting for Rafa and Fernando Gonzales' match to finish (suspended last night due to rain.) Rafa's knee injury has flared up again, so Gonzo might sneak that one in...

For the women's draw, the news has been all about Melanie Oudin's huge run (with a little bit of Kim's great comeback sandwiched in the news). She beat 4 Russians to get to the quarters (former Junior #1 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva, 3-time Grand Slam champ and Screaming Shriekster extraordinaire Maria Sharapova, and former #3 and current top 10 player Nadia Petrova.) Unfortunately for her, current French Open champ

Svetlana Kuznetsova lost to #9 Caroline Wozniacki, and Oudin's tennis powers apprently doesn't work out as well versus blonde Danish tennis players. Caroline won their quarterfinal match easily, 6-2, 6-2.

I've been waiting for Caroline to get a big grand slam result since last year, but she would usually lose in the 3rd or 4th rounds, to the point that I was starting to think she won't make it and the Azarenka really was this year's teen queen... But now Caroline has made the semis (Azarenka's best was a QF at the French Open and Wimbledon), and has a pretty good chance to reach the finals. She'll be facing the other surprise of the tournament, unseeded Belgian Yanina Wickmayer. With Dinara and Jelena getting the upset axe, Yanina sneaked in to the semis playing big, aggressive tennis. It's great to see another Belgian coming up the ranks, a year after Justine retired. And speaking of Belgians, Kim Clijsters' comeback is officially a success. She beat Venus Williams in the 4th round 6-0, 0-6, 6-4 and will now be up against Venus' little younger sister, Serena for a place in the final. I want Kim to win, if only to spur Justine Henin to make a comeback of her own, but this match (and the whole tournament) will probably go to Serena.

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I'm using Google Chrome right now instead of Firefox... And while I'm liking some of it's features, I don't think it can handle the US Open website too well. The browser hangs a lot, especially when I open the Live Scores page. Boooooo Google Chrome!