Australian Open 2023

[+ Charlie]

I would also watch out for Ostapenko, who looked really strong beating Gauff. She and Rybakina will be an interesting matchup today, even as a visual contrast (the fire hydrant versus the telephone pole).

Edited January 23, 2023 by Charlie

[BSR]

17 hours ago, Charlie said:

I would also watch out for Ostapenko, who looked really strong beating Gauff. She and Rybakina will be an interesting matchup today, even as a visual contrast (the fire hydrant versus the telephone pole).

The telephone pole beat the fire hydrant pretty easily.  Do my eyes deceive?  I could swear that Ostapenko, who appears to have gained 20 (30?) pounds since winning Roland Garros, is faster than the beanpole Rybakina.  Either you were blessed with fast-twitch muscles, or you weren't. 

Novak absolutely crushed De Miñaur, allowing the Aussie only 5 games.  De Miñaur has no chance against Novak because the two play a very similar style, except that Novak does everything (tons) better.  Much to my relief, Novak commented post-match that he didn't feel the hamstring at all while playing *knockwood*

Bummer!  Jessica Pegula lost to Vika Azerenka in the QF.  Azarenka drives me crazy with that shriek (orgasm? stabbing?) she makes with every shot.  Pegula has improved a ton, but alas, back to the grindstone.

I'm curious to see how Ben Shelton fares in his QF.  His game looks huge (140mph serve, big forehand, great movement), but he hasn't faced a seeded player yet.  How will he fare against stiffer competition?  To think, he was ranked #569 this time last year and is already up to #43 in the live rankings.  The guy's clinched Newcomer of the Year, and it's not even February yet.

[+ Charlie]

Pegula's career seems to rise and fall with the fortunes of the Buffalo Bills. They lost on Sunday.

Azarenka's last major title came at the Aussie Open ten years ago; it must be some kind of record if she does it again.

[BuffaloKyle]

8 hours ago, Charlie said:

Pegula's career seems to rise and fall with the fortunes of the Buffalo Bills. They lost on Sunday.

Azarenka's last major title came at the Aussie Open ten years ago; it must be some kind of record if she does it again.

Yeah, stinks for Pegula. She is undefeated in the round of 16 at majors but has never won a quarterfinal.

Edited January 25, 2023 by BuffaloKyle

[BSR]

On 1/24/2023 at 9:14 AM, Charlie said:

Azarenka's last major title came at the Aussie Open ten years ago; it must be some kind of record if she does it again.

When I googled "longest time between Grand Slam titles," almost all the results were the gap between a player's first Slam title and their last, for example, the 17 years 5 months between Serena's 1999 US Open and 2017 Australian Open titles.  For the longest dry spell between 2 Slams, a Reddit thread came up with Virginia Wade and Arthur Ashe.  Wade won the 1972 AO and didnt win another Slam until 1977 Wimbledon.  Ashe won the 1970 Australian, then 1975 Wimbledon.  Wade's dry spell is an eensy bit longer because the 1970 Aussie was held a couple of weeks earlier than the 1972 tournament.

Not sure that a Reddit thread is the ultimate authority on these matters, but I can't think of a longer drought between a player's Slams.  If Azerenka pulls this off, it will indeed be a heckuva feat.

[BSR]

Tommy Paul ended Ben Shelton's Cinderella run in the quarterfinals.  While Shelton's run was impressive, it was tough to gauge his true level because he hadn't faced a top 50 player.  Except for a hiccup in the 3rd set, Paul handled Shelton comfortably.  Nonetheless, Shelton, still wet behind the ears on the ATP tour, has a blazingly bright future. 

I'm so glad to see Tommy Paul finally living up to his potential.  Of the American foursome who came up together in the juniors (Fritz, Opelka, Paul, Tiafoe), many tennis insiders pointed to Paul as the most talented., even though he was often the lowest ranked of the four since they turned pro (2015).  Paul admits that he was immature in his early pro years, unwilling to work hard because success came easy for him in the juniors (Roland Garros boys singles winner, US Open boys singles finalist).  In 2020 he hooked up with coach Brad Stine, a stern taskmaster, and is now reaping the rewards.  Honestly, Novak will probably bulldoze him in their semi, but Paul's risen to a career-high ranking of #18 and can definitely get into the top 10 if he maintains the work ethic.

I haven't watched the Novak-Rublev match yet, but it looks like Novak crushed Rublev almost as bad as he did to De Miñaur.  De Miñaur won only 5 games off Novak, Rublev won 7, maybe Paul can get 9?  Even though Khachanov and Tsitsipas both improved a ton over the off-season, Khachanov has lost 7 straight matches to Novak (1-8 head to head) while Tsitsipas has lost 9 straight (2-10 h2h).  Unless that hamstring flares up, Novak looks destined for a 10th AO.

[+ Charlie]

3 hours ago, BSR said:

When I googled "longest time between Grand Slam titles," almost all the results were the gap between a player's first Slam title and their last, for example, the 17 years 5 months between Serena's 1999 US Open and 2017 Australian Open titles.  For the longest dry spell between 2 Slams, a Reddit thread came up with Virginia Wade and Arthur Ashe.  Wade won the 1972 AO and didnt win another Slam until 1977 Wimbledon.  Ashe won the 1970 Australian, then 1975 Wimbledon.  Wade's dry spell is an eensy bit longer because the 1970 Aussie was held a couple of weeks earlier than the 1972 tournament.

Not sure that a Reddit thread is the ultimate authority on these matters, but I can't think of a longer drought between a player's Slams.  If Azerenka pulls this off, it will indeed be a heckuva feat.

These kinds of records are confusing partly because before the "Open era" began in 1968, the national championships (the "slams") were usually limited to amateurs, so players who started winning as amateurs and then turned pro were usually banned from competing. For example, Ken Rosewall won the US as an amateur in 1956, but turned pro the next year and couldn't play in the tournament again until 1968; he won it again in 1970 as a pro.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Charlie

[BSR]

Congratulations, Aryna Sabalenka!  She always had the big game to win a Slam but never the nerve.  I kept expecting her to crack, and almost did in that first set, but for the first time in her career she stayed strong mentally until the end.  She even kept it together after double-faulting on her first match point.  The old Aryna might have collapsed after DFing on such a critical point, but Aryna 2.0 took a deep breath, regrouped, and 3 championship points later, the trophy was hers.

Congratulations as well to Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler for winning the men's doubles.  Wow, hard to believe a wild card pair won a Grand Slam doubles title.  Maybe even harder to believe that a couple of 5'10"* guys won a Grand Slam doubles title.  I doubt we'll ever see it again.  Amazing too that an Aussie pair won the dubs 2 years in a row.

* Hijikata is fudging.  He's 5'9" on a good day.

[+ Charlie]

I wasn't about to start watching the men's final live at 12:30am PST; I expected to watch the replay today, so I didn't watch or listen to any news when I woke up this morning.  When I started playing tennis at 7:45 this morning, I told the other three doubles players that if they knew what happened in the match, please don't tell me. Wouldn't you know that at 8am I heard someone on the next court blab out that Djokovic won in straight sets.

At least I was able to watch the Eagles beat the 49ers in live play just now.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Charlie

[+ WilliamM]

Looking forward to Novak Djokovic's dad  not embarrassing his son

[BSR]

What hamstring?  Once you saw Novak moving as he always does, you knew Tsitsipas was going to have to come up with something special, a combination of serving great plus bullying Novak around with his forehand.  Stefanos did serve well (broken only twice), but made way too many unforced errors off his forehand (25).  In contrast, Novak made only 3 forehand UEs.  

Coach Goran's big project for the off-season was to beef up Novak's forehand, and it looks like he/they succeeded.  Novak's forehand last season averaged ~76 mph, but in the AO final, he averaged ~83 mph.  Tsitsipas has one of the biggest forehands on the tour, yet in the final his average forehand speed was actually slightly slower than Novak's.  Tsitsipas's average forehand speed for Sets 1/2/3 was 134/131/128 kph (134kph = 83.26mph) whereas Novak's forehand averaged 133/134/134 kph.  Great improvement for Novak, bad news for the rest of the tour.

[mike carey]

3 hours ago, BSR said:

Tsitsipas's average forehand speed for Sets 1/2/3 was 134/131/128 kph (134kph = 83.26mph) whereas Novak's forehand averaged 133/134/134 kph.

An aside on this that you become familiar with when you've lived through a transition from one measuring system to another. 'Hard' and 'soft' conversions are different and you adapt over time. A 12oz can doesn't become a 340.19g can, it becomes 340g or perhaps 350g. Under consumer law, the mass doesn't need to be precise but it can't be less than what it says on the can. As they re-jig manufacturing, canners will adjust the size to a 'logical' i.e. rounded number, likely ending in 0 or 5g.

Consumer laws obviously aren't relevant but in the case of tennis speed radars 134km/h doesn't mean 134,000 m/h, it means 134km +/- 499m. 'About 83 mph' is about as precise a measurement as can be offered, but it's still interesting to see the precise conversion. The same thing applies in reverse at tournaments where the on-court speeds are in mph. The conversion to km/h is imprecise, and even less precise than conversions the other way because whole number mph speeds are less precise than whole number km/h ones. (And yes, technically I should have said 'velocity' not speed.)

Not saying you shouldn't convert to n decimal places, you live after all in a miles kind of place.

[BSR]

4 hours ago, mike carey said:

An aside on this that you become familiar with when you've lived through a transition from one measuring system to another. 'Hard' and 'soft' conversions are different and you adapt over time. A 12oz can doesn't become a 340.19g can, it becomes 340g or perhaps 350g. Under consumer law, the mass doesn't need to be precise but it can't be less than what it says on the can. As they re-jig manufacturing, canners will adjust the size to a 'logical' i.e. rounded number, likely ending in 0 or 5g.

Consumer laws obviously aren't relevant but in the case of tennis speed radars 134km/h doesn't mean 134,000 m/h, it means 134km +/- 499m. 'About 83 mph' is about as precise a measurement as can be offered, but it's still interesting to see the precise conversion. The same thing applies in reverse at tournaments where the on-court speeds are in mph. The conversion to km/h is imprecise, and even less precise than conversions the other way because whole number mph speeds are less precise than whole number km/h ones. (And yes, technically I should have said 'velocity' not speed.)

Not saying you shouldn't convert to n decimal places, you live after all in a miles kind of place.

I've watched enough tennis to get used to serve speeds in kph, but forehands in kph I can't wrap my head around.  I know that a 200kph serve is a pretty fast serve, 210kph is really big, and 220kph is monster.  But since a 134kph forehand meant nothing to me, I had to do the conversion.

If your forehand averages 75mph (Novak's average before this year), that's only slightly above average on tour.  85mph might not sound like much of a difference, but veeeeeery few guys hit their forehand that big -- Basilashvili, Theim pre-injury, del Potro pre-retirement.  Post-2022 US Open, Novak was already the best player in the world.  If he's added another 8mph on his forehand, that's downright scary.

I do wonder if Novak will continue to hit his forehand that big all the time or if he just mashed the accelerator because of the circumstances (fast court, low bounce, Tsitsipas's weak backhand). 

PS:  I found after posting about Hijikata & Kubler that 2022 men's dubs champions Kokkinakis & Kyrgios were also wild cards.  For wild cards to win a Slam once is a crazy fluke.  The odds that it happens 2 years in a row must be lottery-esque.