Australian Open 2014

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Draw happening now in Melbourne.

Womens:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Australian_Open_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_Singles

Serena and Li Na in one half.
Vika and Sharapova in the other.

Top half possible R16s: Serena-Ivanovic, Vinci-Errani, Li-Lisicki, Kerber-Kvitova
Bottom half R16s: Jankovic-Halep, Suarez Navarro-Sharapova, Radwanska-Wozniacki, Sloane-Azarenka.

Mens:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Australian_Open_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_Singles

Murray and Nadal in one half.
Djokovic and Ferrer in the other.

Nadal opens agains Bernie Tomic Could be epic, could be a disaster.

Possible Men's QF - Nadal-del Potro, Murray-Federer, Berdych-Ferrer, Wawrinka-Djokovic.

yerwanthere123

Serena gets Barty in R1. Whilst obviously the result won't be in doubt, should be fun all the same. Serena could face a R4 challenge in the form of Stosur, but that obviously depends on if Stosur manages to scrape through three matches, which I doubt.

Tough draw for Laura, getting Flipkens in R1. I don't fancy Laura's chances tbh, especially being injured and having played just the one match this year. Section 2 of the draw is looking fairly soft, we could (and I really hope we do) get a Keys-Bouchard 4th rounder, which would be pretty cool.

Li Na pretty much has a bye to the QF's, unless Lisicki actually shows up and plays some decent tennis. Pretty good draw for Kvitova too, she should go through to the QF's without too much trouble. A Kvitova-Li Na QF would be pretty good actually.

Decent draw for Jankovic too, I don't see people like Halep or Jovanovski stopping her progressing to the QF's, athough I think Jovanovski has a good shot at defending her points from last year.

Sharapova gets Mattek-Sands in R1, there's a potential banana skin for her if ever I saw one! I can actually see that going to three sets, but with Maria ultimately coming through. Radwanska will play charm school graduate Yulia Putintseva, which could be a fun match. Radwanska should reach her fifth QF here, but I see her going no further.

A R3 rematch with Jamie Hampton looms for Azarenka, hopefully it'll be as fun as last year, should it happen. And even better, a rematch with Sloane in R4 also looms. That is of course if Sloane actually gets that far, she could crumble early under the weight of expectations. Kuznetsova also in that part of the draw, she's always a dark horse. Seems weird to think she's the #19 seed actually!

This is, as always, Serena's title for the taking, but as we saw against Sloane last year, anything can happen.

yerwanthere123

Nadal-Tomic should be epic! At least in atmosphere anyway. Ryan Harrison gets Monfils in R1, which I think is a winnable match, but with Nadal looming in R3 he shan't be going far. I actually think Ryan is talented, and with a decent draw at a slam he could get to maybe the 4R/QF. He never gets a good draw though!

Decent draw for Delpo, possible 4th rounder with Raonic or Dimitrov. A QF with Nadal could be pretty special, and Delpo certainly has the firepower to hit through Nadal. With the courts apparently playing faster as well, this will work in his favour. I am of course, looking way too far ahead, Delpo could well bomb out in R2/R3.

Very good draw for Andy, as good as it could be for a player coming back from injury. Will probably play the winner of the looming 4th rounder between Fed and Tsonga, which I would make Tsonga the favourite for. Would be a shame to see Fed out before the QF's for a 3rd consecutive slam... but there you go.

Possibility of a Ferrer-Janowicz 4th rounder, but I'm guessing Jerzy will implode long before this point.

Djokovic pretty much has a bye to the QF's, where a potential rematch with Wawrinka looms. Could never see him losing to Wawrinka though, so it looks as if Djokovic is pretty much a lock in for another final in Melbourne. Would do anything to see neither him nor Nadal win it though!

Looking forward to it now, can't wait

MisterAnarchy

So we have Nadal,Murray,Federer and Del Potro in one half of the draw and Djokovic on his own in the other half of the draw.
4 of the top 6 seeds in one half of the draw ,with dangers like Tsonga,Verdasco,Isner,Tomic and Raonic also in the top half whilst the bottom half has only one grand slam winner and nobody else really of note.Ridiculous

WaterLily.

I know it is pure coincidence but I totally agree! Terribly unbalanced but there you go!

edit: cant wait for Nadal v Tomic! if Tomic plays like he is playing this week in Sydney it could be a simply fantastic match. However Tomic could be a complete no show as he often is which would mean (as someone said) complete disaster.

RosyLily

Stosur must think the AO people hate her! R1- Zakopalova (Hobart finalist), R2- Pironkova (Sydney champ), R3- Ivanovic (Auckland champ), R4- Serena. Ouch!!

John.Icy

AO tournament director has come out and said the court speed will be the same as last year. I guess Brisbane was down to the heat and other factors.

Disappointing.

yerwanthere123

John.Icy wrote: »

AO tournament director has come out and said the court speed will be the same as last year. I guess Brisbane was down to the heat and other factors.

Disappointing.

This was the first I had heard of that, I then looked it up and found out that Craig Tiley announced this 5 days ago? Surprised more noise wasn't made about it. If it is indeed true, well... I for one will not be looking forward to the 14 hour Rafa/Nole final.

Rjd2

RosyLily wrote: »

Stosur must think the AO people hate her! R1- Zakopalova (Hobart finalist), R2- Pironkova (Sydney champ), R3- Ivanovic (Auckland champ), R4- Serena. Ouch!!

Makes no difference always bombs here to be fair.

MisterAnarchy

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

If it is indeed true, well... I for one will not be looking forward to the 14 hour Rafa/Nole final.

Yes I heard they plan to play the final over 2 days ,7 hours each day .

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

John.Icy wrote: »

AO tournament director has come out and said the court speed will be the same as last year. I guess Brisbane was down to the heat and other factors.

Disappointing.

Sydney was playing quite fast too. Delpo said the bounce was low and fast and Pironkova, who plays well at Wimbledon and nowhere else, won her first career title there.

I was looking forward to a more exciting Aus Open this year, I guess it's not to be. Tomic v Nadal on a fast surface could have been interesting to see.

yerwanthere123

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Yes I heard they plan to play the final over 2 days ,7 hours each day .

With many tennis 'experts' afterwards labelling it the "greatest match of all time" :pac:

WaterLily.

^ any sports match that goes on for that long ceases to be good and just becomes tedious. I found the last set exciting but that was about it... And I did not watch much of the middle part of the match!

Completely unrelated to the actual game of tennis but Andy Murray's twitter page is very funny, I'm not on twitter nor do I have any desire to be but I do find myself reading his page and he cracks me up. Anyone that says he doesn't have a personality is talking absolute crap.

MisterAnarchy

WaterLily. wrote: »

^ any sports match that goes on for that long ceases to be good and just becomes tedious. I found the last set exciting but that was about it... And I did not watch much of the middle part of the match!

Yes ,those long rallies are tedious as the vast majority of the baseline shots land inside the service box .
Its rare you get a long rally when both players are going for the lines.

yerwanthere123

WaterLily. wrote: »

^ any sports match that goes on for that long ceases to be good and just becomes tedious. I found the last set exciting but that was about it... And I did not watch much of the middle part of the match!

Completely unrelated to the actual game of tennis but Andy Murray's twitter page is very funny, I'm not on twitter nor do I have any desire to be but I do find myself reading his page and he cracks me up. Anyone that says he doesn't have a personality is talking absolute crap.

I remember watching the match.. good god it was awful. It probably didn't help that I was tired and hungover though. I watched the first set, which was and hour and a half, then fast-forwarded to the final set. So like you, I didn't watch much of the middle. I was so glad it was over, and utterly bemused to then hear it being referred to as one of the greatest matches of all time! Even worse, at one point people were questioning if it was better than Nadal-Federer '08! That has long since faded, thank god, and I think most people now see the match for what it was.

Agree 100% about your Andy Murray comments too. Did you see the Q&A's he did with his followers on Twitter a couple of weeks back? It was absolutely hilarious
http://tennis.si.com/2013/12/29/andy-murray-twitter-q-and-a-qatar-open/

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

^ I think the issue with Murray is that people confuse being a personality with having one.

Murray is an athlete first and foremost. He does his media obligation at tournaments but that's where it ends for him. He's not an entertainer and that should be fine.

I used to find Djokovic very entertaining off the court but after a while it wears a bit thin and he seems more like a performing monkey these days. The likes of Nadal and Federer are more reserved than Djokovic but their public personas are still very much a managed thing. You only see the real personality of a lot of these players when they're losing or going through a difficult patch. Serena Williams another example. She's always being praised for her attitude and persona but take a look at her when she gets a bad call or is losing to someone she shouldn't be losing to. Completely different matter.

With Murray you get what you see. He's a whinging bugger during his matches, win or lose, but he's talking to himself most of the time. Off court he's much the same, other than the whinging.

RosyLily

Day 1 schedule is out http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/schedule/index.html

Good to see Zvonareva back on the tour! Kimiko Date-Krumm vs. Belinda Bencic.....a massive 27 year age difference between these two!!:eek:

yerwanthere123

RosyLily wrote: »

Day 1 schedule is out http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/schedule/index.html

Good to see Zvonareva back on the tour! Kimiko Date-Krumm vs. Belinda Bencic.....a massive 27 year age difference between these two!!:eek:

Further highlighting the age difference, Belinda Bencic's mother is five years younger than Date-Krumm!

Also, the Day 1 schedule is pretty poor I must say!

WaterLily.

[QUOTE=yerwanthere123;88418398

Agree 100% about your Andy Murray comments too. Did you see the Q&A's he did with his followers on Twitter a couple of weeks back? It was absolutely hilarious
http://tennis.si.com/2013/12/29/andy-murray-twitter-q-and-a-qatar-open/[/QUOTE]

Yes I did that was hilarious!! I love the photos with the falcon and his captions!

There's an interesting interview with Nadal in the financial times magazine this weekend. They did a sort of special on him with a big interview straight after he lost the world tour finals final to Djokovic. I find Nadal gets a lot of stick due to his extreme niceness and modesty in interviews and even I was thinking ok he can't be that nice and modest ALL the time, but after reading the interview I believe that the Rafa that we see on tv is the exact same in real life.

The article talks about how he won a big juniors competition when he was 15 and his aunt wanted to throw him a party and uncle Toni said absolutely no way and read off the names of all the previous winners of the competition and asked Rafa how many he had heard of. Then when he won Wimbledon in 2008 he bought himself an Aston Martin which his whole family was completely against and to this day they refuse to be seen in public with it! He also says he wants to be born and die in Mallorca and he will never move and he speaks to his parents and sister every single day when on the tour. The interviewer asks him that surely he thinks that he is brilliant at what he does and he just says no 'I don't, and the second I start to think that, this, my career and my success is all over'.

I just found it an interesting read

Chefrio

WaterLily. wrote: »

Yes I did that was hilarious!! I love the photos with the falcon and his captions!

There's an interesting interview with Nadal in the financial times magazine this weekend. They did a sort of special on him with a big interview straight after he lost the world tour finals final to Djokovic. I find Nadal gets a lot of stick due to his extreme niceness and modesty in interviews and even I was thinking ok he can't be that nice and modest ALL the time, but after reading the interview I believe that the Rafa that we see on tv is the exact same in real life.

The article talks about how he won a big juniors competition when he was 15 and his aunt wanted to throw him a party and uncle Toni said absolutely no way and read off the names of all the previous winners of the competition and asked Rafa how many he had heard of. Then when he won Wimbledon in 2008 he bought himself an Aston Martin which his whole family was completely against and to this day they refuse to be seen in public with it! He also says he wants to be born and die in Mallorca and he will never move and he speaks to his parents and sister every single day when on the tour. The interviewer asks him that surely he thinks that he is brilliant at what he does and he just says no 'I don't, and the second I start to think that, this, my career and my success is all over'.

I just found it an interesting read

I 'd recommend everyone reads Nadal's book, there's a lot of lessons to be taken from it, both life lessons and achieving success in sport.

yerwanthere123

Vika surely must be the least popular women's champion in Australian Open history. Every time the AO Facebook page posts anything about her it's always just a wave of negativity.

Looking forward to tonight! Although as I've already mentioned the day schedule is pretty poor for Day 1. I mean, I know Gajdošová plays for Australia and everything... but come on. That match should not be on Rod Laver Arena.

WaterLily.

After reading that interview I actually would quite like to read his book, and I've heard that about it.

I feel sorry for Vika, she isn't really that popular in general and I don't really know why. The schedule is rubbish for day 1!!! I was planning on staying up but I really couldn't be bothered, I'll just record it and watch any decent matches tomorrow.

yerwanthere123

Here we go

frostie500

Always like the Aussie Open even though it means staying up all night! This year Im over in California so at least I'll get the early games at a reasonable hour but I'll miss all the night session matches

Rjd2

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Yes I heard they plan to play the final over 2 days ,7 hours each day .

yerwanthere123

Horrendous from Laura, but the wrist may have something to do with it. Or maybe not. Only Laura knows. Either way, not good being the very first player out, just after midday!

yerwanthere123

Rjd2 wrote: »

You never miss an opportunity to use that :pac:

Rjd2

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

You never miss an opportunity to use that :pac:

True but it is just so apt!

Flipkens right now is a better player than Robson so no real shock that one.

flazio

And now Watson gone as well but put up a better fight. Li Na is set to go through as well.

flazio

First big upset in the ladies. Kvitova knocked out by Thai player Kumkhum.

WaterLily.

Big upset with kvitova, only caught the last few games and the young Thai player was playing incredibly!

Also Robson looks to me like she needs more time in the gym, she doesn't look like she plays sport for a living. It could be her wrist but she just looked awful both physically and mentally. Not much more could have gone wrong in that match for her.