Near Misses and Actual Casualties

Lots of huge results happened earlier today during some 4th round action at the Aussie Open.

Following in the footsteps of fellow Serbian Ana Ivanovic (who's Grand Slam disasters continued with a 3-set loss in the 3rd round to Russian Alisa Kleybanova 3 days ago, which by the way, I predicted in my previous post), world #1 Jelena Jankovic lost to 16th seed Marion Bartoli of France (scoreline: 6-1, 6-4). Bartoli was the same player who upset then #1 Justine Henin couple of years ago at the Wimbledon semifinals when no one expected her to. I don't think anyone (except maybe her coach/father) ever predicted that she'd be able to beat Justine at a Wimbledon semifinal match, but she did. And I definitely didn't expect her to beat Jelena today, but she did it again.

I don't get how Bartoli does it. It's like her game is just a 7 usually, and once every two years, she manages to raise her game to an 11 against the No. 1 player in the world at a Grand Slam event. Maybe she sells her soul as a shared stock to the devil, thus the sometimes bug results, and the usually mediocre ones. Anyway, she's one hell of a quirky French player, so I guess I... like her?

Dinara Safina was another player who had a huge struggle in her match against another French player, #15 Alize Cornet (who defeated Daniela in the previous round.) The difference was she managed to win. Lil Sis Dinara (I've decided that she'll always be Marat's lil sis until she wins a grand slam...) was down 2-5 in the 3rd set, and Alize even held one match point before Dinara staged a huge comeback to win the match 7-5 in the 3rd set. With the two Sebs out of her way, I think Dinara has a huge chance to reach her 2nd Grand Slam final here, unless of course, the devil decides to buy stocks from Bartoli again. And in that case Lil Sis is toast.

Last but not the least among the players who were on a sinking ship today was, surprisingly(?), Roger Federer, who had to come back from 0-2 sets down to win in 5 sets against Czech #20 seed Tomas Berdych. Federer started off playing a bit wobbly, making a lot of errors and hitting some short, loopy shots that allowed Berdych to pound the daylights out of the ball. But as the match wore on, Berdych started to miss his big shots and Fed was able to steady himself and hang tough. He better clean up his game though, if he expects to beat Murray in the final.




----------------
Now playing: Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game
via FoxyTunes

Numero Uno

Ok. This is an all-tennis post/Roland Garros update:

The men's and women's French Open Championship matches are now set! Tomorrow, World #2 Ana Ivanovic of Serbia will square off with Marat's Lil Sis Dinara Safina of Russia for the French Open title. Whoever wins here will get their first ever grand slam title. This will be Ana's third grand slam final, after she lost to Justine Henin in last year's French Open, and to Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open last January. On the other hand, Dinara will be making her grand slam final debut.

The 22 year-old Dinara, ranked 14 in the world, has been having the best clay court season of her career. She won the German Open a few weeks ago by defeating three top 10 players (then-#1 Justine Henin, #5 Serena Williams, and #7 Elena Dementieva.) At the French Open, she did a repeat by beating current #1 Maria Sharapova (6-7, 7-6, 6-2, after being match point down in the second set), Elena D again (quarterfinals, after being down a match point again 4-6, 7-6, 6-0), and #4 Svetlana Kuznetsova (semifinals, 6-3, 6-2).

I caught Ana's semifinal match against 3rd ranked and fellow Serbian Jelena Jankovic yesterday. It was a great match that ended 6-4 in the third set after 2 hours and 15 minutes. Lots of tension too, because whoever won that match would not only get the chance to play in the finals, but would also automatically overtake Sharapova and claim the #1 ranking (Masha lost in the 4th round.) So Ana won, and she'll now be ranked #1 next Monday, no matter what happens in the final match against Dinara.

Congratulations, Ana. Not just because you'll be the new #1, and because I think you'll win the ladies' final tomorrow, but because you also managed to land on the cover of FHM UK next August. You're not just taking Maria's titles. You're also getting her magazine cover opportunities.

You've truly made it.

-------------------------------

Ok, I spent so much time talking about the ladies' part of the draw. So moving on to the men's side. #2 Rafa beats #3 Djokovic (also from Serbia) in the semis to keep his perfectly undefeated record at the French Open. #1 Fed defeated surprise finalist and #59 Gael Monfils of France. Rafa beats Fed in the men's final on Sunday. That's all there really is to it.

ETA: Ok, since I was unloading a bunch of info on the women, I might as well go all the way on my tennis dork mode and talk more about the men's semifinalists too. Rafael Nadal holds a 26-0 w/l record at the French Open, By reaching the semis here, Roger Federer extends his record of reaching 16 straight semifinals at Grand Slam events. Novak Djokovic also has his own albeit smaller streak by reaching his 5th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal. He is only the fourth player in the Open Era to reach 5 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals (the others are Fed, Becker and Lendl.) As for Gael, well, this really is the French dude's first big result in the ATP Tour... He's been hyped up a lot as a future champion when he was a newbie, and it took him about 4 years to finally come up with a nice result for all that hype.

----------------
Now playing: Modest Mouse - Out Of Gas
via FoxyTunes