Aussie Open Rewind

The first Slam of the year is over and this one gets a B. As they say in Oz it was ‘awright’…Yeah, just ‘awright’. The Women definitely brought it, or to be more specific Serena and Justine brought it, and made the event worth while. Both women seemed to survive this aussie open, at times neither one looked capable of winning, and then at other time both looked unstoppable. The final was ‘awright’, great at times, occasionally compelling, but Henin ran out of fight in the home stretch.

The men, what about the men? Federer earned my respect for his continued excellence, but, there is something about his ear-to-ear grin at the awards ceremony and in all the post-event media exercises that left me a bit cold. It was a lingering feeling that Federer continues to be a questionable sportsman. These last two years have begun to show his slightly narcissistic nature. I don’t begrudge him celebrating, but he needs to take a lesson from his cohorts, most notably Nadal and Djokovic who seem to accept defeat graciously and can muster a smile at an awards ceremony where they are not the champion. Federer’s toothy grin wouldn’t offend me as much, if I had seen a semblance of graciousness in defeat over the last two years. But that is fodder for another blog.
The men disappointed as far as I’m concerned. Lot’s of blowouts, not a lot of nail biters, too many injuries and questionable illnesses (Djokovic) and outside a HIGH STRESS tiebreaker in the third set, a pretty disappointing climax. It felt a little like the Australian Open’s of the 70’s and 80’s when players may or may not have shown up and even when they did they weren’t really ready to play a grand slam tournament. Here’s hoping calendar revisions in the years to come can find a way to remedy scheduling a slam right out of the gates of a new season.

Nonetheless, congrats to the champions. Not since 2007, when Roger and Serena last ruled the Aussie Open together has it felt like a calendar year slam (on one or both sides) is a possibility, nothing more and unlikely, but a possibility all the same. If I had to pick, I would say Federer has the better chance, particularly if Nadal doesn’t fully recover. Without Nadal in his way, Fed is the best Clay Courter in the world and another French, en route to the Grand Slam seems more likely.