Here's to a fun, hassle-free and completely uncontroversial tournament... 😬
Women's draw
Men's draw
Collins leads 5-1 second set and looks much more confident.
Much better from Barty now, crowd getting to Collins.
5-5 second set.
6-5. Collins.
4 championship points
Frankly ridiculous in this day & age that the women aren't playing best of five sets in these big tournaments. Would be a truer test, more intriguing, allow for comebacks and give the public value for money. What are they afraid of?
I’m glad Barty won, the pressure on her was enormous and she has carried herself so well but I do feel sorry for Collins, the crowd were horrible. You can support your home player but be respectful of her opponent and actually applaud her good shots. Collins was very upset because she is usually a very gracious loser and that handshake was perfunctory at best.
It’s crazy that they get paid the same prize money as the men. They should only get 60%.
Really dislike the Australian crowd. No problem supporting their favourites but have some respect for the opponents. It seems the crowd now revel in behaving like that.
Given we’ve just seen a player go two breaks of serve ahead and then immediately squander it, in what way are comebacks not allowed currently?!
When he said he had a surprise to present the trophy, I thought it might be Djokovic.
Come on, we've all seen great 5 setters where a player loses the first two but battles back into the match and takes it to 5.
The womens game is more like a sprint/ middle distance race than a marathon.
Regardless, there's no reason at all from a biological point of view that women should not play best of 5.
Didn’t the commentators say it was going to be someone else ?
They are lucky to get 60% of what the men get in most other tournaments (joint events or separate), despite all those being best of 3 for both men and women. Is that not crazy as well? At present, Indian Wells, Miami and Madrid are the only tournaments where it is equal pay for equal work. Even in other big joint tournaments like Rome and Cincinnati, there is a huge disparity. If anything, the gap widened during the pandemic, especially at the smaller events,
Also, be careful what you wish for, One consequence of the women playing best of 5 in all rounds of a slam would be women and men playing on alternate days. Personally, I'd prefer it were for just the last 3 or 4 rounds, which would be more equitable and workable.
This is like the Oscars.
I think it is more of a time issue rather than the women not wanting to play the best of 5. The tournaments would need to be extended to 3 or 4 weeks or number of players cut to allow both mens and womens go to 5 sets.
Surely there are solutions for that, as suggested above for example - best of 3 for both men & women for opening rounds and best of 5 from say last 16 on? It would be a truer athletic contest for women.
Glad Collins made Barty work for it at the very least. Would've been nicer to see a third set, but happy that Barty won. Despite all her success, I just can't particularly warm to her and I'm not sure why.
Turgid stuff. Not sure I'd want to see it prolonged
Not a Barty fan either, as you say just can't warm to her, but fair play to her for winning, she must have been under enormous pressure to win her home slam
They could easily make the semi finals and final best of 5 for the women with minimum effect on the schedule, don't think there's much demand for that as the standard in the women's game is very poor atm.
I don't think Nadal will look that good though. If he doesn't win it in 3 he won't win and that will be down to fitness levels. The difference is Nadal is 35 years old and the fact he has reached the final at his age is a bit of a joke tbh and doesn't say much for the men's game.
Tsitsipas has no excuse for being physically drained so easily.
Well you say that but Nadal is no ordinary 35 year old is he. Nadal at 35 and past his best is still going to be better than most players on tour.
Regardless of the standard, best of 5 would require a bit more work and graft. Fitness, stamina and athleticism would play a bigger part.
Professional sport is commercially run on the basis of revenue coming from primarily three elements ->
The reason that WTA tournaments run on their own have low prize money is because the prize money is a function of those three elements of revenue - i.e. they are run on a commercial basis - how the real-world actually works.
The 4 Grand Slams and a few other Masters tournaments are artificially subsidised above what the WTA side of those three elements would bring in on their own in terms of the prize money as the men's and the women's are given equal prize money.
It's actually a slap in the face to all the other women's sports which don't receive this non-commercial subsidy - where normal commercial rules apply -> what the sport brings in commercially is what the remuneration is based on.
It's the same in the real-world commercial workplace where thankfully there is mostly a concept of meritocracy now -> whoever does the best job commercially (woman or man) should get the best remuneration.
There is actually a simple way to get an idea of this subsidy.
Here is some information that I was able to find about the ticket prices for the Women's and Men's singles finals at the Australian Open in 2021
The women’s final can be watched live for as little as $148 or as much as $530.
The cheapest ticket to the men’s final is currently priced at $550 or fans can pay $990 for the best seat in the house.
So with the same level of stadium capacity (50% capacity or 7,477 seats in 2021), the cheapest (worst seat) ticket to the men's final was more expensive than the most expensive ticket (best seat) for the women's final, it's very clear what level of subsidy is going on when you consider that the prize-money is the same for both.
When the actual attractiveness and value to consumers (in this case tickets) is laid bare by translating it to brass tax money numbers it's all very clear.
So if this was translated into the real-world -> salesperson 1 could sell a company's worst product for more than salesperson 2 could sell the company's best product but the proposal was to pay them the same - how would that go down I wonder...?
He shouldn't be though. His talent and ability will be better but in a sport like tennis that advantage should be drastically reduced due to the physical nature of the sport. It isn't reduced because the calibre of the people he has faced is fairly poor.
I thought this was interesting. I'd have assumed that the balls had to be the same across all four grand slams.
Happy for Kokkinakis but not the cúnt he's playing with. A real catch 22.
It's true he's no ordinary 35 year old, but, he's also a long way past his prime, has just comeback from a long layoff and this is also his least favourite slam, at this stage in his career, the younger players in and around the top 10/15 should be able for him and certainly should be putting up better performances against him. All things concerned it's remarkable that he is in the final.
Medvedev is a step up from what he has faced so far, so I would expect Medvedev to win it, but, certainly no guarantee he will.
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