Justine/Rafa 2010

The French Open will be starting later today and this one's gonna be all about comebacks, I think.

Rafael Nadal will be looking to reclaim his title after shockingly losing (for the very first time) at Roland Garros last year to Robin Soderling. Rafa hasn't lost a match on clay this year, and it looks like he'll be keeping that trend up in the next two weeks. And just like the past 4 years, I'm expecting to see Roger Federer on the other side of the net versus Rafa in the finals, but he won't be winning back-to-back French Open titles over the best player clay court player of all time, who also happens to currently be in top form after suffering from injuries last year.

The other great comeback that I can't wait to see is from Justine Henin, who came out of retirement at the start of this year and then displayed a more aggressive game all the way to the Australian Open final, before losing to #1 Serena Williams in a tight match. Justine was the queen of Roland Garros, she was a 3-time defending champion from 2005-2007 (she also won it in 2003) before deciding to abruptly retire from tennis two weeks before the 2008 French Open while ranked #1 in the world.

Justine's draw this year is actually really, really tough. She's seeded #22, and could potentially face #12 Maria Sharapova (who just won in Strasbourg a few hours ago) in the 3rd round, and #7 Samantha Stosur (who won at Charleston and then reached the final in Stuttgart last April) in the 4th round, and then #1 Serena Williams (who, you know, is Serena) in the quarterfinals. That's a really difficult set of players to get through just to reach the semifinals of a tournament.

Anyway, it should be interesting to see how Justine does. I predict that whoever wins the Justine-Serena quarterfinals will go on to win the whole tournament. And that match should be fun!

The Era of Roger/Serena

Roger Federer won his 4th Australian Open, and 16th grand slam title overall, after beating Andy Murray in dominant form, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(13-11). Roger played great tennis in the semis vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and carried that form through to the finals. Murray just couldn't find any openings to break down Roger's game. And honestly, when Roger is playing his best (or close to his best), Murray's best just isn't gonna be good enough on the day. So with Rafa struggling with a knee injury, will this be Roger's year to win THE grand slam? We'll just have to see. One down, three to go.

Better luck next time other Andy, at least you didn't bawl your eyes out like last year's losing finalist.

The women's final ended with Serena Williams winning her 5th Australian Open title and 12th singles grand slam title (She also won her 11th doubles grand slam title with Ate Venus) by beating Justine Henin in 3 sets. Serena is slowly inching her way to the Steffi Graf/Martina Navratilova/Chris Evert group of Best Ever. She's gonna have to survive Justine's return from retirement to get close to the 22/18/18 grand slams that the 3 aforementioned legends have won.

Justine made an impressive comeback at Brisbane on the first week of January, where she lost a brilliant final to fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters. She then followed that up by making the Grand Slam final in only her 2nd tournament after more than a year off of tennis. She couldn't quite replicate Kim's run at the US Open (and Serena fortunately didn't have a line judge-related meltdown too), but with a more aggressive game and the same Allez-screaming, fist pumping, never-say-die attitude, Justine will probably add a few more grand slams to the 7 she already has.

Also, big props to:

1. The Chinese ladies Jie Zheng and Li na who both made it to the semifinals. This is the first time that two Chinese players (heck, two Asians) ever made it to the semifinals of a grand slam.

2. Croat Marin Cilic, who survived several 5 set matches against Juan Martin Del Potro and Andy Roddick to reach his first grand slam semifinal. Cilic is having a great year so far. He has played in two other tournaments besides the Australian Open, and won both of them.

3. Blonde Eastern Europeans - Maria Kirilenko, who followed up her upset win over the other Maria by making it all the way to her first grand slam quarterfinals, and Victoria Azarenka, who made her first Aussie Open quarterfinals and had a 6-4, 4-0 lead over Serena before succumbing to an avalanche of Serena's aces and winners.

*pictures courtesy of the Australian Open website/Getty Images

Wimbledon Update

It's been a great Wimbledon so far, with lots of surprises and tight matches.

Especially on the ladies' side if the tournament, where the top 4 players in the world have all lost. This is the first time in the Open Era (in ~40 years) that all top 4 seeds in the women's side failed to reach the Quarterfinals stage. Maria Sharapova was the first one to lose (I talked about it on this post), then world number 1 Ana Ivanovic of Serbia followed shortly, losing in the 3rd round to Jie Zheng of China, who is currently ranked #133. But then again, maybe Ana should just be thankful that she actually made the 3rd round. She barely survived in her previous match, beating Natalie Dechy 6-7, 7-6, 10-8, saving two match points against her along the way. As for Zheng, she won her next two matches and is now in the singles quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career (she has won two Grand Slams before though, in doubles.)

And then earlier today, the #2 and #4 seeds, Jelena Jankovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova both lost in the 4th round, to Thai Tamarine Tanasugarn and Pole Agnieszka Radwanska. But even though the top 4 players are gone, it's not like Wimbledon has ran out of WTA stars. The Williams sisters, who have 6 Wimbledon titles between them, are both in the quarters and could easily meet in the finals. I wonder what Justine Henin is thinking about this lineup.

The QF line-up:
Jie Zheng (CHN) vs Nicole Vaidisova (CZE)
(Nicole was a quarterfinalist last year too, she's been having a bad year so far (there was a point where she lost 6 straight matches), but it looks like Wimbledon has revived her)
Agnieszka Rawanska (POL) vs Serena Williams (USA)
(Aga Rad has been having a great year so far, her ranking is now up to #11, but Serena has 8 Grand Slam titles)
Elena Dementieva (RUS) vs Nadia Petrova (RUS)
(What would a Grand Slam be without the pre-requisite All-Russian quarterfinal match? Elena isn't exactly a grass-court expert, and Petrova has fallen from the #3 to #18 in the rankings... But they both outlasted all the other Russians.)
Tamarine Tanasugarn (THA) vs Venus Williams (USA)
(This is the Thai 32 year-old's first grand slam quarterfinal. Venus is a 4-time Wimbledon Champ. Mismatch? Or huge chance for an upset?)


On the Men's side, only three of the top 10 players are left, led by the two best players in the world, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The other top ten player is the uber-talented Richard (Reeshard!) Gasquet of France. And right now, Reeshard is still playing his 4th round match, which he could very well lose to local boy Andy Murray, the #1 Brit and #11 in the world. Which is a pity because Reeshard is one of my favorite players. His backhand is poetry in motion to watch.

It's looking to be a Fed-Nadal final for the 3rd straight year, although I wouldn't count out the winner of the Gasquet-Murray match to snatch Nadal's spot up there.

The QF line-up:
The Master Federer (SUI) vs Super Mario Ancic (CRO)
(Ancic was the last player to beat Fed at Wimbledon, in 2002 when Ancic was 18 year old. It might be difficult for Mario to repeat that win though, since his 4th round match lasted for 3 hours and 49 minutes, going 13-11 in the fifth set.)
Marat Safin (RUS) vs Feliciano Lopez (ESP)
(Safin followed up his win against #3 Djokovic with two more wins to book a quarterfinal spot. This is his first appearance at a Grand Slam quarterfinal since winning the Australian Open in 2005)
Rainer Schuettler (GER) vs Arnaud Clement (FRA)
(These two surprise quarter finalists are the oldest men left (Rainer is 32, Arnaud is 30.) The other thing they have in common is that their best Grand Slam performance was reaching the final of the Australian Open (Clement in 2001, Schuettler in 2003). The other, other thing they have in common is that they both lost to Andre Agassi easily on those Aussie Open finals.)
Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs the winner of the Gasquet/Murray match
(Nadal is trying to be the first man since Bjorn Borg in the 80's to win back to back French and Wimbledon titles. Gasquet and Murray are now in the 5th set of their match, Gasquet won the first 2 sets but Murray came back to win the next 2 sets)



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Oh Well.

Ok. World #1 Justine Henin just announced that she's retiring from tennis, immediately.

"This is the end of a child's dream. This is a definitive decision. Those who know me know it is serious. I thought long about this. I started thinking about it late last year. I was at the end of the road. I leave with my head held high."

I usually pick my favorite female tennis players using a very shallow criteria (from Mary Pierce and Dominique Van Roost to Daniela Hantuchova and Maria Kirilenko) rather than on the number of tournaments they've won. But I became a fan of Justine because of how beautiful her game was, most especially her one-handed backhand. If I had Federer's forehand and Justine's backhand, I'd die happy. I remember how great it was when she won her first French Open title back in 2003 because as she said, it was at that tournament as a ten year-old girl when she told her mother while watching the Graf-Seles final that she'll win it someday too. Her mom died of cancer two years later. She won the French Open eight years after that.

Justine retires from the sport as the #1 ranked player. She will not be defending her French Open crown this year, after having won it for the past three years.




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