While sports experts hunker down in Glendale, Arizona, analyzing game strategy, records, and players; while Bill Belichick and Tom Brady blamed Mother Nature for a flat ball and Marshawn Lynch avoided a fine, it all led up to Super Bowl XLIX there was a tennis Grand Slam happening on the other side of the planet at the Australian Open in Melbourne, and competition was pretty fierce.
To some extent, Serena Willams and Novak Djokovic winning their respective titles Down Under is no surprise. Each player is ranked No. 1 in singles tennis competition. But as the tournament winds all the way down to the finals, several noteworthy storylines emerge.
Of course the ladies’s final pitted the top two tennis players Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. It’s not newsworthy because, technically, that is what should occur. The match that brought Serena to the final was. The semifinals saw Serena (arguably the most dominant woman in tennis for the last 15 years) play 20 timesth-ranking, the underdog Madison Keys. The 19-year-old Keys made it to the semifinals after a hard win over Venus Williams in the quarter-finals despite appearing to be injured during the match. While Serena beat him convincingly in straight sets, her semifinal appearance was her best Grand Slam finish since she turned professional in 2009. After the semifinal match, Serena acknowledged Keys’ bright future by predicting a No.1 ranking for Keys in the near future. It will be interesting to see if and how Keys will appear in the next three Grand Slam tournaments to see if Serena may, in some way, pass the tennis torch to her.
On the men’s side, no American has played even into the quarterfinals in quite some time, so no story on that front. What mattered most in Melbourne this year was Roger Federer’s underwhelming performance. Despite being seeded 2nd, Federer was knocked out in the third round by unseeded Italian Andreas Seppi, breaking Federer’s streak of eleven consecutive semifinal appearances at the Australian Open and marking his earliest exit from the tournament since 2001.
Winning the Australian Open men’s singles title is nothing new for Djokovic. He won in Melbourne five times. Interestingly, her Grand Slam strength is much stronger in Australia than in France, England or the United States. He only won twice in Paris and Wimbledon, and once in New York. Big picture tennis dominance will definitely benefit from a more even distribution of Grand Slam trophies.
All in all, the 2015 tennis circuit will be interesting as new storylines develop, young players emerge and legends are created. Here is looking forward to the next round.
