Right well its time to finish up my look at the ladies tournament at the Australian open this year as the Williams sisters met in a historic final as they prepared to fight it out for the title in their 9th major final.
So with that being said let's see how the final panned out....
THE FINAL
Well the final of course promised to be quite a clash given that Venus has one of the closer head to heads of any against Serena as little sis (i.e. Serena) leads their head to head 16-11 going into this match. And prior to this match, Serena was looking to break Stefi Graff's record of 22 major titles whereas Venus was looking for her 8th major title and first title down under.
However the match itself wasn't quite the classic encounter that we'd hoped as Serena was the boss in the match pretty much from the word go although to be fair Venus did try and make things close as the two women traded breaks of serve in the 1st set, but Serena soon went on to serve it out.
In the 2nd set it was more of the same as Serena soon managed to break Venus to go ahead on the scoreboard, and despite one last ditch effort from Venus to break back to go 5-5, having pushed Serena to 30-30, it wasn't enough as little sis got over the finishing line to win the title. And with this win Serena surpassed Stefi Graff's record of 22 grand slam titles as Serena recorded her historic 23rd major title with a commanding 6-4, 6-4 victory.
THOUGHTS
Well there really wasn't a great deal to expect from this final in terms of the result as it was already a foregone conclusion that Serena would win it, as not even Venus could stop her mighty younger sister from breaking the record books here. And right now no one can really compete with Serena when she plays like this and with this title she not only broke the record she also got the No.1 ranking back from Angelique Kerber, who lost out in the 4th round of the tournament (just like Andy Murray did, although he get's to keep his No.1 spot courtesy of Novak's earlier 2nd round exit, but I digress!).
As for Venus well she deserves a great deal of credit for her run to the final and for reaching her first major final in 8 years, it still shows that the old lass still has it in her and just maybe she might even have a chance of winning a grand slam herself one day before she will hang up her racquet. Venus also provided one of the most entertaining and flamboyant runner-up acceptance speeches at the trophy presentation for which she also deserves credit for and even if Venus can't beat her little sister, she can at least outdo her in the speech stakes! Anyway despite her loss, Venus will now see her ranking go back up to No.11 in the world, just outside the top 10, so no doubt she will be back in there in no time.
Getting back to Serena, well there is now no limit to the number of slams she go on to win and from here its hard to put a figure on how many more she will claim before she retires but there is no doubt that this win pretty much cements her place as the greatest female singles player of all time. Although Serena still has one more record to break and that is to overtake the all time record holder, Margaret Court, who has 24 major titles in singles, although this does extend back before the open era began in 1968.
The only problem however from here for the women's game in this current era of Serena Williams is there are no great rivalries because no one can really compete with Serena day in, day out due to her power and her incredibly accurate serve. Back in Serena's earlier days she had the likes of Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin and of course Venus when she was still in her heyday and together they produced some great matches. However in this day and age that era is now long gone and there are practically no players that can take on that mantle to compete with Serena and the sport needs great rivalries and if they are missing that's when the game becomes stagnant and dull.
So while the game of ladies tennis is still an eminently watchable one just now, the only real downside is that until someone can challenge Serena it will not be able to elevate itself to the level that the men's game has with the "big four" which is a great pity. And this remains the main thing undermines Serena's great achievements that they were achieved in era, where rivalries in the ladies game against the very best are currently looking to be a thing of the past. So let's just hope in the future that someone will come along to take up that mantle or once Serena retires maybe it will pave the way for some new and exciting players to take over.
In the meantime however, Serena should still be congratulated for her tremendous achievements in the sport and she will no doubt keep on playing until she puts that title record well beyond anyone's reach.
SIGN OFF
Right, so that's it for now and I will be back on here soon with the men's final, which was between Roger Federe and Rafael Nadal, which promised to be an epic of well... epic proportions! How did it turn out??? Well you'll find out in the next post (or alternatively just look it up on the Internet!).
So I will get onto that just now and see you soon....
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