Right OK, I must apologise as I have been neglecting the ladies side of the tournament so far but that all stops now with this post as I will do a quick catch up on how their event has gone up until now although I won't really go into much detail to save time. Instead the real focus of this post will be primarily on the ladies semi final matches and my prediction for the final.
So let's take a look and see how the top seeds who went out got on before they fell down under....
TOP SEEDS THAT WENT OUT
Angelique Kerber - Well Kerber, the current World No.1 didn't have the best of tournaments as despite making it through to the 2nd week, she was then upset by the American player, Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets. This result would mean if Serena were to reach the final and win the title she would drop down to No.2 in the world as of next week.
Agnieszka Radwanska - As for Radwanska, well she didn't fair any better as she was beaten early on in the 2nd round by the giant killer, Marjana Lucic-Baroni in another straight set defeat, denying the 3rd another shot at her maiden major title.
Simona Halep - Simon suffered an ever worse fate than Kerber or Radwanska as she fell at the first hurdle in her opening match where she lost to the American player, Shelby Rogers, also in straight sets.
Karolina Pliskova - Pliskova, last year's US Open finalist, on the other hand did make more progress as she managed to reach the quarter finals this year in Melbounre. However Pliskova took on Marjana Lucic-Baroni also and fell foul to her abilities to slay the top seeds although it was a battle as it took three sets for Pliskova to be upended.
Dominika Cibulkova - As for the 5ft 3 inch pint sized Cibulkova, who had won the WTA Championships last year, she suffered an early exit also as she was beaten in the 3rd round, losing to the Russian player, Ekaterina Makarova in three sets.
Svetlana Kuznetsova - Kuznetsova, who has had a real resurgence in the last year or so by getting back into the top 10, also lost out in the 2nd week as she was defeated by her Russian compatriot, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who put her out in straight sets.
Johanna Konta - Next up is the British No.1 in the ladies game and 9th seed, Jo Konta, who made it to the semi finals last year but this year she met her end at the hands of Serena Williams, who beat Konta convincingly in straight sets to deny Jo her a shot at winning her first major.
Carla Suarez-Navarro - And lastly the Spaniard, Suarez-Navarro, the 10th seed also suffered an early exit as she was beaten by the Romanian player, Sorana Cirstea in straight sets.
SEMI FINAL MATCHES
And now to get onto the ladies semi final matches, which were between Venus Williams vs Coco Vandeweghe and Serena Williams vs Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, so let's take a closer look at them.
Venus Williams vs Coco Vandeweghe
OK so first up is the match between Venus and Coco and it was a pretty high level entertaining match that saw Coco really take it to the former finalist and seven time major champion in Venus as the young American nabbed the first set on a tiebreak. However it wasn't long before Venus fought her way back into the match a she broke Coco twice in the 2nd set to level the match. And in the 3rd set, Venus proved too strong for Coco, who she broke once to go ahead and then broke her again as Coco failed to hold onto her serve at 5-3 down, which saw Venus fall to her knees in delight at reaching her first grand slam final since 2009 with a 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 win.
Well this was a result and a match that saw Venus roll back the years (and you might hear that term being mentioned quite a bit from now on in this posts!) as she really proved here that she still has what it takes to win a major or at least reach the final of one and she sure looked delighted to be back in the final of one of the biggest events in the sport.
As for Coco, well she will no doubt disappointed with her loss here but she did a great job in getting herself this deep into a grand slam for the first time and judging by her game she should be a future major winner if she can continue her form. I also think that Coco should be commended as a player as she one of the very few female players around these days that DOESN'T grunt! And I honestly can't think of another player off the top of my head in the ladies game that doesn't grunt (other than Kim Clijsters who is now retired of course!) although many of the men are now guilty of it too, but I digress.
Serena Williams vs Marjana Lucic-Baroni
Next up is the second semi final, which was between the 22 time grand slam winner, Serena Williams and first time Melbourne semi finalist, the Croatian, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni. Now this match was an intriguing one on paper given Lucic-Baroni's reputation for taking big scalps in her career by taking out some of the biggest players out there, so she presented something of a threat to Serena going into this match.
However....the match itself was no more than an exhibition for Serena's power and precision as she swiftly dispatched the plucky Croatian with a ruthless straight set victory that saw Serena with a chance to win her 7th Australian open title with a 6-2, 6-1 scoreline.
Well there isn't really much else to say about this match other than Serena was simply too good for Lucic-Baroni on the day and she demonstrated why she is arguably the greatest female player to have played the game. And Serena will certainly prove that point as she will go on to try and win her 23rd grand slam title and thereby surpass Stefi Graff's record of 22 and put Serena within one of equalling the all time record held by Margaret Court.
And this brings me onto my look at the final....
LADIES FINAL PREDICTION
Well here we have a final that none of us would have predicted would happen but here it is, the Williams sisters are both back in a grand slam final and its been 8 years since they last played each other in a major final. So how will it go???
Well to be honest from here I can still only see one winner and that is Serena and the reason being that she has far more extensive slam final experience than her sister and she is way ahead in her tally of 22 in comparison to Venus's 7. Also Serena has been in terrific form throughout this tournament so far and I don't think she is going to stop at playing against her sister.
However the only thing that might stop Serena from winning is herself as she could get tight on court at the notion of playing her sister, which she has said in the past has always made her uncomfortable when it arose. Serena also might have the record of 22 slams on her mind and trying to break it might also give her reason to get edgy in the final whereas Venus has precious little to lose, so the pressure will almost certainly be more on her little sister.
So my final prediction is that Serena will win this one but given that its the Williams sisters, I think it could be quite close and wouldn't be surprised if it went the distance although if Venus starts making errors then it could all be over pretty fast. So I think Serena will probably win this in straight sets but it might be tight so a tiebreak in one set is at least a possibility here so maybe we might get a scoreline such as 7-6, 6-3 and for what its worth that's what I'll go for here, so Serena in two: 7-6, 6-3.
SIGN OFF
Right well that's it from me for now and I will be back soon with the results of the men's semi finals and see how they went.
Until the next one its bye fer now!
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