AO Finals Are Set

Women’s final

            In a throwback, the women’s final will have Venus and Serena Williams.  The semifinal matches for these two were notable only in the play of Venus Williams, who looked a lot younger than 36 in beating Coco Vandewegh, who had a really great tournament.  If Vandewegh can keep up that level of play she will really make some noise this year.  The Williams sisters haven’t always had the best matches when playing against each other.  I predict a pretty good one with Serena prevailing.

Men’s Final

            In another throwback, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer will go at it for the men’s title(!).  The semifinal between Federer and Wawrinka has already been discussed, but something should be said about the other semi between Nadal and Grigor Dimitrov.  This match will surely go down as one of the best of 2017, with Nadal ultimately prevailing by 6-3, 5-7, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4.  This match was so close that one might say it came down to a let cord by Dimitrov in the 4-4 game of the 5^th set that caused his ball to travel long, and make a break of serve possible for Nadal. 

            Nadal played the kind of tennis we were used to seeing from him when he dominated the tour.  The fact that Dimitrov was able to push him this hard testifies to the tremendous tennis Dimitrov was able to produce, and to the dogged competitive spirit shown by the Bulgarian.  How Dimitrov was able to transform himself from a rather tame competitor who played aimless tennis to the force he was today is a mystery, but one thing is for sure: if Dimitrov can play this way consistently he will reach the top 5 and win a major.

            Presuming Nadal recovers well from this five hour match and plays at the same level he attained against Dimitrov, he will win the match against Federer.  For Federer to come back from a six month absence at age 35 to beat four top ten players in a row and win the title is asking a lot.  If Federer is able to beat Nadal, this major win will go down as one of the greatest achievements by any player in the open era.  As Federer is fond of pointing out though:  the great thing about sports is that you can never know until the match is played. 

Oldies but goodies

            The final four players in this tournament are so old by tennis standards (Venus 36, Serena 35, Federer 35, Nadal 30), that we might ask if this tournament being played in Melbourne Park or Jurassic Park!  Why are older players doing so well these days?  A post on that later.