Welly welly well, its great to report (or at least type up) that in the men's Australian Open that all four of the top seeds are through to the semi finals. It happened last year twice in the slams at the French Open and the US Open, and its really good to see it happen again this year already into the first slam. It shows just how good the top four guys really are and they totally deserve to be there at the latter stages of the tournament.
Anyways here's a bit more about the matches and how they went, I've already updated about the Rafa and Federer matches in my last post, the former being the best by far as Rafa was pushed nearly all the way in a 4 set epic against Tomas Berdych. Federer however had the easier match in a surprising dispatch of Del Potro in straight sets. And there's one thing I have to say about the difference between Roger and Rafa's matches, for me Roger's matches can at times be a bit too precise and clinical at times, as he dispatches his opponents. But Rafa's matches can tend to be that bit more exciting as Rafa fairly often has to grind out his wins, which makes for longer games and tighter matches, which overall makes it more satisfying to watch.
But I digress, so onto the other two men's quarter finals matches today, starting with Andy Murray who took on the up and coming Japanese player, Kei Nishikori, who made a bit of history in being the first man from Japan to reach a quarter final of a grand slam in over 70 years. And Nishikori, in this match, while clearly it was Andy who was in control, actually acquitted himself pretty well, especially in the first two sets, which were despite the scoreline, pretty tight, as the young player threatened Andy from the baseline. In the third set however I think tiredness had set in for Nishikori, from his 5 set match against Tsonga the other day, and Andy broke easily to clinch the set, winning in 6-3, 6-3, 6-1, in just under 2 hours and 15 minutes. This was another fine performance from the Muzza, and it also sees him as being the freshest he has ever been going into a grand slam semi final match, which is a very good thing indeed. However one very alarming thing that arose from this match was his drastically low first serve percentage, which dropped to 44%! This is pretty woeful even by Andy's standards, and he cannot afford to serve like that in his next match, which I will say more about in a minute.
Now onto the second match of the day between Novak Djokovic, and the World No.5 David Ferrer, and this match turned out to be a much tighter encounter, well for the most apart, as Djoko faced off a very dogged and agile opponent in Ferrer. And for two sets, Ferrer really gave Djokovic the runaround and impressed the audience with his atheletisism and his groundstrokes. But Djokovic being who he his, refused to be undone, and soon went two sets to love up, after a tiebreak in the 2nd, and by the 3rd, Djokovic took total control and sealed the win in 6-4, 7-6, 6-1. This was quite a gripping and entertaining match as both players put on a very high standard of play for the audience, and Djokovic, despite struggling a little with a hamstring injury, still came through in great style. It was a pity for Ferrer who fought so hard and well for the first two sets, to quickly fade away from the match in the 3rd, but he did very well for the most part.
So this sets up two blockbuster semi finals matches, with Roger vs Rafa, and Andy vs Novak, they both promise to be terrific encounters. However tennis is unpredictable game, so you can never tell how things are going to go, as each player could beat the other, but its just a matter of who it will be. My thoughts on the matches are, starting with Roger and Rafa, that I would favour Federer to win this one, as his level of play has been exceptional throughout this tournament and he is yet to drop a set, but I think it will be a much tighter contest than their last meeting in London, where Fed demolished Rafa in 6-3, 6-0. Also I'm sure Roger will want revenge for when he last lost to Rafa at the Australian open final back in 2009, which saw Roger reduced to tears during the award ceremony. It must always be a tough thing for a great player to except when his roll at the top is over, but the way Federer is playing, he could easily win it back.
Now for the Muzza and Djoko, this one is really hard to call, because on one hand, Djokovic is the best player in the world, and on the other Andy has greatly improved his game since this time last year, so it will be really difficult to guage just where they will be at in their respective games till they are out there. However I do have to say, unfortunately that Djokovic might stand a better chance of winning than Andy, although Andy will go into this match feeling fresh and fit, while Djokovic has a mild hamstring injury to contend with and just finished two tough matches. This definitely could work in Andy's favour, but you can never ever understimate Djokovic, as people keep saying, he's number 1 in the world for a reason. There is of course also the danger that Andy might suffer a repeat of last year's defeat in a similar manner, but I really don't think so (well I hope not!!) as I think Andy is playing way better now than he was last year at this time. But I am struggling to actually visualise him winning the match, but he can certainly do it, I just hope he can as it would be a great bit of revenge for his loss last year. So now will be the time to consult Ivan and get all the best advice he can get as to how about he can go about defeating Djokovic this year. But whichever way it goes, I really think it could be the match of the tournament, probably even better than Roger and Rafa's encounter, however it could also be a big blowout, but something really tells me otherwise.
Anyway I shall report back soon, with more on the ladies semi finals matches.
Till then tara the now!
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