AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2015

yeah, I sort of started making the predictions thinking Serena would have an early loss based on her Hopman Cup form and last year's sundry flops but when it comes down to it you just CAN'T pick, like, Svitolina over her. And not Muguruza again. And then we're into the territory of top players she owns.

Sharapova looked in untouchable form in Brisbane and she has a draw that's just right for her. Maybe if Safarova makes R4, but Lucie is so much weaker mentally.

Deploy withdrew so Lex's are already in jeopardy

oh wtf phone

:( Pony wasn't ready physically. Couldn't hit through the backhand.

I also fear Sharapova is going to win and become #1. One can keep saying "no hardcort major in 7000 years" but... ugh.

oh nooooo Delpo :(

I love the Australian Open. It legitimises my insomnia for a fortnight. Also, tennis.

Sad about Delpo. Mostly because I'd just backed him to try to repeat my "pick an unlikely winner/finalist" ploy that has seen me make money on Wawrinka, Cilic, Nishikori in the last 12 months. And also because I love him.

seppi/istomin 5th set could def be uh entertaining

Ana looking v. likely to be the first big casualty of the tournament - two breaks down in the final set leaving Lucie Hradecka serving for the match.

And she's out. Spying Sabine as another possible upset - broke Kiki at the start of the third, but was broken straight back.

And Kiki takes it in the third.

Andy Murray appears to have fallen asleep while I wasn't looking.

What happened to Bencic in the off season? Losing to Goerges is not exactly a promising sign.

And by that scoreline, oof.

Of all the unexpected things to happen on day one (Ivanovic still flopping at Slams, and did Kerber's heroics last week kill her?) the most unexpected might be choosing Foretz/McHale as my first match to watch

Very disappointing loss from Konjuh as well.

Kuznetsova and Lisicki both go 0-3 in Australia, albeit you could have seen it coming against Garcia and Mladenovic respectively.

Good day for Young France, nice win for Océane Dodin over Riske!

McHale wins 12-10 in the third over Foretz, who - contra Young France - was, I believe, alive at the time of the French Revolution.

Li Na is pregnant! That didn't take long.

Gavrilova misses by millimetres on her two SPs…then dumps a slice into the net on Bertens' first. Ouch.

lol ana

Kokkinakis/Gulbis is pretty underwhelming. Gulbis has shaved properly for the first time in years.

Gavrilova is a very, er, emotional player...

LOL @ Gulbis yelling at the crowd to "show some respect"

Shocking loss by CSN to Witthoeft 3 and 1. Witthoeft is a decent young player but she's never had any WTA-level results of note and was not in good form coming in at all (losing to Abduraimova and Townsend in qualies...)

Wow the Kokk saved 4 MPs and then Gulbis just collapsed in the TB. This match is getting crazy

Why does Gulbis exist

Ridiculous self-destruction in that TB

Crowd are dicks

Kokkinakis down BP at 6-6, shot called out...Hawkeye shows it in by MILLIMETRES

Gulbis's returning on key points has been a disaster

Two DFs and a FH halfway up the net to end it for Gulbis

Gulbis's forehand falling short reminds me so much of Ivanovic's backhands that barely make it to the net.

The crowd were dicks. Stop bashing the sides making noise you philistines. Kokkinakis doing the Andrew Ilie-esque run around the stadium. What is he even wearing, though it's not as bad as Kyrgios' pine-lime Splice monstrosity.

Two consecutive sub-80mph Niculescu serves, Stosur dumps the first return into the bottom of the net and shanks the next into the crowd

Most matches are a handful of games in. In that time Oprandi's gone 0-6, 0-3 down to Allertova. Think we've found our "still injured but just here for the R1 paycheque" candidate.

Stosur loading every FH with topspin and Niculescu responding to every one with slice is quite weird to watch

This Almagro-Nishikori game is entertaining. Almagro alternating between amazing shot-making and atrocious unforced errors.

enjoying this lopez/kudla 5th set, not incred tennis but these guys are well matched

never noticed how much bigger lopez's left arm is than his rt

Currently enjoying woz v taylor townsend. Then I really should go to sleep.

lol @ Stephens

pretty much everything went as expected. Stosur's early troubles with Niculescu were entertaining but that was never going to be an upset. 100% expected the JaJa and Petkorazzi upsets (how Madison Brengle and her nothingy game are entrenching themselves on tour I have no idea but the results are happening). Also expected the Thiem non-upset of Princess Agut. One tight set, one easy set is an exact reprise of the Woz/Townsend match from Auckland. Azza has never been troubled by Stephens, even at the start of her own decline or at Stephens' supposed peak.

Kanepi can get in the hall of shame for losing to Falconi though, who does that. And it was a tough draw but Watson should've done a bit better than 4 and 0 to Tsveti. Jay-Z winning three games off Asian WC Chang suggests she's done in singles too :(

Rogowska entering her 7th year of being handed free passes into Slams just for being Australian. 10 WCs, of which seven have been R1 losses. Never cracked the top 100. Never been ranked high enough for direct entry. Never managed to come through qualifying. Her only other Slam MD appearance was as a lucky loser at the USO 2013, where she was promptly double bagelled by Errani. An entire career sustained by nationalism.

Getting the "bitching about the Australian media" portion out of the way - if there's one thing worse than the usual crowd of dickhead commentators... it's when they decide to give us a "treat" and let Henri Leconte in the commentary booth. THE WORST.

Pouille and Monfils both playing well :)

don't wanna be That Guy who goes on about people who've conveniently taken out slam-nation citizenship or what not, but srsly, Tomljanovic/Rogers as the last match on a prime court? GTFO, neither of these players should have any business playing a 1R match on a night session.

omg that Pouille miss at 4-4 30-30

omggggg

Pouille's volleyed so well all match and then gets broken there after fucking up two volleys and then letting one go that landed in on BP

Love Gael and that was a fabulous match but what a gutting way to lose for Pouille.

Wtf happened to Goffin??

Was dusting off all the Maria Sharaplolva gags but she came back from being served against for the match. A *lot* of stupid mistakes though.

I just dozed off for a bit, and Roger appears to have dropped the first set while I wasn't looking.

I did wonder whether Goffin might be the type to flop at Slams, where Baghdatis typically peaks...

The Sharapova match sounds as aggravating as usual, not sure whether to LOL that Panova took more than 5 games off her or to be annoyed at the two MPs missed.

Mladenovic/Mattek-Sands was a nice contrast. Mladenovic is so slow to react on the baseline though, and she absolutely ballsed up an easy SP in the second set TB. Great win for BMS on her way back up the rankings though.

Murray trashing Matosevic, delicious after his comments about female coaches.

Smyczek was really unimpressive in the fourth set. No idea how he got two sets off Rafa.

Rafa was pretty bad in set 3. Smyczek is hitting lots of lovely winners though.

Tomic-Kohli was a good match, much better than the Rafa shitfest

Bepa vs Serena yesssss no matter what happens it's all good

feel quite badly for zvonareva now, from 2 set pt chances, serenas p much broken her spirit

zvonareva nearly injured herself going for serenas return winners

slow death, 2nd serve in the net at 15-30

Brilliant depth 30-40. Really doesn't have many ops to turn this.

great point for a break.

wow.

Totally swung momentum. I am so glad to be able to type this crap out, otherwise I'd be in the chair.

the mother of all epic games

huge hold. 5-5

another epic - best period of the match, god like.

Unbelievable from Murray, to wear him down like that: 4 SPs

omg what a miss.

ok gets it. I need a lie down.

Murray Breaks, ruthlessly.

2x aces!!

D got away with a tame drop shot.

Amazing how the break for the protestors turned the momentum round!

What was that about?

2 BPs so.. :-(

horrible game from Murray.

Murray's 2-1 games to get broken back are so aggravating

What was that about?

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, February 1, 2015 11:29 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

protest against Aus treatment of refugees

thing is if Murray's expecting these dubious injuries from Djokovic why is he falling for them? Djokovic limping around doesn't make you dump routine strokes in the net

I don't know if that is having an effect really, its just swings back and forth.

D Under the cosh and and got through..

0-30, Murray screams out..

then a disaster approach to the net. 0-40

DF..loses to 15

throws his racket in disgust. too right.

Made all the errors...3rd set D.

Ugh, Murray's tetchiness and the way he threw that set away

just netted one: 15-30

total shit from Andy.

disgusted @ that pull. 2-0

Again when he was in control of the rally

right I'm done.

shockingly bad

imminent bagel?

lmao what a way to hand over a third break

Well, that was some whimper Murray slid out with there.

Well might he break all his racquets. Winning one of the last 13 games from 2-0 up in the third.

Pathetic, but also I'm really sad to see him end an otherwise very successful tournament like that because I love the Muzz/Mesmo coaching pairing :(

Your roll of honour:

Men's singles: Novak Djokovic
Women's singles: Serena Williams
Men's doubles: Simone Bolelli & Fabio Fognini
Women's doubles: Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova
Mixed doubles: Martina Hingis & Leander Paes
Boys' singles: Roman Safiullin
Girls' singles: Tereza Mihalikova
Boys' doubles: Jake Delaney & Marc Polmans
Girls' doubles: Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova

those last couple sets... #bestof3

murray winning would've been a nice bonus, but extreeeeeemely pleasing tournament :)

New rankings

1. Serena Williams (1)
2. Maria Sharapova (2)
3. Simona Halep (3)
4. Petra Kvitova (4)
5. Caroline Wozniacki (8)
6. Ana Ivanovic (5)
7. Eugenie Bouchard (7)
8. Agnieszka Radwanska (6)
9. Ekaterina Makarova (11)
10. Angelique Kerber (9)
11. Venus Williams (18)
12. Andrea Petkovic (13)
13. Sara Errani (14)
14. Flavia Pennetta (12)
15. Lucie Safarova (16)
16. Jelena Jankovic (15)
17. Carla Suarez Navarro (17)
18. Dominika Cibulkova (10)
19. Alize Cornet (19)
20. Madison Keys (35)
21. Shuai Peng (22)
22. Karolina Pliskova (20)
23. Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova (23)
24. Garbine Muguruza (24)
25. Samantha Stosur (21)
26. Elina Svitolina (26)
27. Svetlana Kuznetsova (27)
28. Sabine Lisicki (28)
29. Varvara Lepchenko (30)
30. Caroline Garcia (36)
...
34. Irina-Camelia Begu (42)
41. Sloane Stephens (32)
46. Madison Brengle (64)
49. Victoria Azarenka (44)
66. Yanina Wickmayer (80)

1. Novak Djokovic (1)
2. Roger Federer (2)
3. Rafael Nadal (3)
4. Andy Murray (6)
5. Kei Nishikori (5)
6. Milos Raonic (8)
7. Tomas Berdych (7)
8. Marin Cilic (9)
9. Stan Wawrinka (4)
10. David Ferrer (10)
11. Grigor Dimitrov (11)
12. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (12)
13. Ernests Gulbis (13)
14. Feliciano Lopez (14)
15. Kevin Anderson (15)
16. Roberto Bautista Agut (16)
17. Tommy Robredo (17)
18. John Isner (21)
19. Gilles Simon (20)
20. Gael Monfils (19)
21. David Goffin (22)
22. Fabio Fognini (18)
23. Philipp Kohlschreiber (24)
24. Alexandr Dolgopolov (23)
25. Ivo Karlovic (27)
26. Leonardo Mayer (26)
27. Julien Benneteau (25)
28. Richard Gasquet (28)
29. Lukas Rosol (30)
30. Pablo Cuevas (29)
...
35. Nick Kyrgios (53)
36. Gilles Muller (42)
46. Viktor Troicki (54)
48. Bernard Tomic (66)