Tales of the unexpected
With the Australian open over we can reminisce on what happened. The most obvious thing was that the first grand slam of the year had two unexpected winners. I’m not expecting that to repeat through the season. Djokovic, Nadal and Murray are at the top of their careers at the moments and that has to be a theme through the year.
I’ve learnt to look at the Aussie Open for clues of break through players. I think we saw a few hints of that, but the underlying themes were taken by the top seeds and their relative performance / under performance. I’m not sure we learnt much from them to be honest. I know Federer had a good run, but I’m still not convinced by it. Nadal put Federer to the sword quite easily and easier than the odds suggested. I’m still happy to bet against Federer.
The curious thing about the final is that the last two years have taken unexpected twists. Last year a feather seemingly cost Murray his chance for glory and this year a back spasm in the warm up sent Nadal packing against the odds. I’m very familiar with players getting out of the zone, but the thing I learnt from this years final was to carefully watch service speeds for clues of problems. Re-watching other matches I can see how this can add a little more depth to things.
An interesting tournament, but not my best. I missed far too many chance this year. But I’m sure there will be plenty more to follow as we move through the season. Image details the score and odds from this years final.
Category: Tennis
