Australian Open: Closing Ceremony

Hey Y'all. Galileo here.

We're almost at a close. Melbourne is becoming to Djokovic what Paris is to Nadal, but Nadal might lose two sets in a tournament. Also, if you combine Djokovic's total slam haul with Murray's they just overtake Nadal's French Open total. Yeah -- that fact is scarier than Stephen King in a clown mask holding a big scary knife on the Kingda Ka, the tallest rollercoaster in the world.

Now the mixed doubles has been decided. It took Hingis and Paes an hour and 120 seconds to come through against third seeded Mladenovic/Nestor, the Wimbledon winners from 2013 and defending champions here. The Hingis team won 40% of receiving points and broke five times. 1998 was the last time we had back-to-back mixed doubles champions. Venus and Gimelstob won in Australia and France. Serena and Mirnyi [they were a fantastic partnership] took out the Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles following that. That's part of the reason mixed doubles is sometimes seen as the complement to the big four, the same way Murray is with the big three but also kind of not.

Serena made four mixed finals in a row, from losing with Luis Lobo to Venus in the 1998 French Open through to the 1999 Australian Open.
Yep, I found a way to end the Australian on Luis Lobo.

=Suicide Pick=
Round 1: Venus Williams [D. Torro Flor]; Jerzy Janowicz [d. Moriya]
Round 2: Ka Plíšková [D. Dodin]; Lleyton Hewitt [d. Becker]
Round 3: Agnieszka Radwanska [D. Lepchenko]
Round 4: Eugenie Bouchard [D. Begu]
QF: Simona Halep [D. Makaraova]
Mixed Round 1: Hingis/Paes [D Jovanovic/Thompson]
Mixed Round 2: Dellacqua/Peers [D.Klepac/Guccione]
Mixed QF: Mirza/Soares [D. Dellacqua/Peers]
Mixed SF: Hsieh/Cuevas [D. Hingis/Paes]

And I am done at the semi-final stage. Expect this feature to return, accompanied by one or two new ones, bigger and better for the French Open.


ROD LAVER: DJOKOVIC d. MURRAY
...In the wake of one of the best Super Bowls ever, we can reflect back and think of the bad ones. I had several heart attacks and two minor strokes during that last quarter alone. My heart was palpitating. I couldn't believe that flukey catch. The Seahawks have a very lucky, flukey, gimmicky offense. It was the Giants all over again, all over again. I was not happy. And then that call. Oh, boy. And it's the same with tennis. Becker defeating Chang was a classic, though it is not always remembered. Laver had a couple of classic matches. Graf and Seles played a few, the Williams sisters, Federer, Hewitt, Sampras, Agassi, Rafa and Djokovic, too, have played in a classic in their time. My Evonne played in a few. She made eighteen singles finals and Serena has now nineteen slams. But she played nicer tennis. Nobody ever looked as graceful and talented as Cawley did in a 6-1, 6-0 loss. Anyway this final was not a classic, far from it. Both players looked sluggish, especially Djokovic who didn't grunt and moan as much as he normally does. Also he looks really uncomfortable when hitting that backhand slice. He normally does and it looked especially suspect in the final. It's effective but painful to watch. This was a slow final with no zip, no zing. Djokovic hit 50 winners and 43 errors whilst Murray could only go 41-49. The first two sets where the pair exchanged breakers lasted over two and a half hours. The next two combined were just 67. The mixed doubles was shorter than both of those first two sets. There were fourteen breaks in this match and it just lacked quality throughout. Let us all hope, for the sake of our sport, this match gets left in the history books and forgotten about. The French Open final will probably be a bit of a dud, but Wimbledon usually saves us. Let's just try not to think about what New York has in store for us yet. Instead of watching highlights of that, watch this instead:



And if you watched all that final I can only apologize and the above video highlights should help you recover. A truly underrated final awaits your viewing pleasure. Since winning in New York two and a half years ago, an age in tennis, Murray has beaten Novak just once. I think we all remember that match, though. Djokovic leads the head to 16-8 and it doesn't look as if the Scot is going to reduce the arrears.
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=Notes=
* - Is Djokovic the new Azarenka? Multiple Australian Open championships, top ten in the Open era in terms of holding the world number one spot, no grand slam, back-to-back U.S. Open finals, great backhands, bad smashing and volleying abilities, a forehand that can be a complete liability, persistent injury worries, a fiery temper and being overshone by their more talented peers, both of which do have the Grand Slam, are all the things they have in common. All the Djoker needs is to have some kind of timeout related scandal in a late round of a slam, preferably at the Australian. Oh wait...

* - Todd pointed out that Murray could have won the same three slams as Becker and Sampras (Ed.Note: and Djokovic, too) did, though his achievements are nothing compared to that of theirs.

* - And speaking of Azarenka, Murray was grunting like a wounded cow. Perhaps that cow on ice Maria keeps talking about. Grunting is very off-putting, and especially the ridiculous noises Murray was making. It looks as if I am on a vendetta against him. That is not the case.

* - Navratilova calls grunting cheating plain and simple. She also once called Schiavone up on it. King, the queen of our sports, has said she disagrees with it. I blame Seles. Yep, I said it. This video is rather excellent. I know it's an older issue, but Murray sounded in pain.



Related to that note: I think Stacey Allaster is fantastic, I really do. She is an unsung hero. She's an all-star in my books.

* - If the Big Four played for ten years at their absolute peaks I think Murray wins no slams but makes a bunch of finals. I think Djokovic wins about 12 but none at the French and none at Wimbledon. "Fedal" will both take all the French and Wimbledon, respectively. I think the other two slams are split between the three and I don't know which way they would fall, though I think Nadal would struggle and I think Djokovic would win a lot of the Australian Open titles.

* - Last two times Djokovic won here he won no slams the rest of the year. Since completing his historic 2011, Nole has won just four slams. One slam a year? Seems more than that, right?

* - The ATP rankings are Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Murray and right now that is a very accurate top four. Watch out if Nadal slips at three or even slips to five. Everyone wants him seeded as high as possible.

And we are done. And I get five days of sleep-filled rest. Then I am back. I called Gasquet to beat Janowicz in the Open Sud de France. Karlovic will win Zagreb by beating another big server, Muller, in the final. I also like Lopez to beat Klizan in Ecuador. These are low key events, so my predictions are low key.

Thanks, Galileo.

WTA BACKSPIN is next door. See the big cool house with loads of stuff going on? That's WTA BACKSPIN. Todd's having a rest after a slam, which is the best rest ever. That's coming from me, who only has to look after the tiny cottage to the left of the house. So yes, go join him.

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