The Australian Open hurtled into its final weekend with all four finalists being former Grand Slam champions, with Novak Djokovic closing a five-setter against defending champion Stanislas Wawrinka to set up a final encounter against Andy Murray.
The women’s final on Saturday is my personal favourite match-up in current women’s tennis — Maria Sharapova versus Serena Williams. They have a long rivalry, an intense competitiveness and a hunger to win, all ingredients to make a popular contest that will garner interest and ratings.
Having said that, we must not lose sight of a staggering statistic — Maria has not beaten Serena in 10 years. It’s a damning statistic for the Russian to be staring at on the eve of her final against Serena, but there is no doubt that Serena troubles her like no other player on the circuit.
Maria’s default setting is to attack from the start, but Serena never allows her to do that. Such is the power and aggression that Serena displays at the start of each of their encounters that Maria has to take a step back and play a more defensive game. This is not what she likes to do and soon her defence starts crumbling and Serena walks away the winner.
Maria would need to reverse this by coming into the game with a lot of aggression. Her only hope is to get Serena on the defensive at the start and then build on that. My prediction is that it will be a fluctuating three-setter, with Serena eventually extending her streak over Maria.
The women’s side of the tournament also saw some interesting players make a mark, with Madison Keys attracting some attention. There are no big, bright American names coming into the limelight after the Williams sisters and Madison certainly has the potential to be a top 10 player, if not a champion.
She has solid technique, a great serve and some pounding ground strokes that make her stand out among her contemporaries. She needs to get a little lighter and work on her fitness to really realise her full potential. We will be seeing more of her in the coming years.
I have been impressed with Ekaterina Makarova for quite some time now. However, she does not seem to enjoy the spotlight and looks less assured in big games. This might sound like a problem that is easy to solve but, very often, players who don’t like the big games have problems making it far in big tournaments.
Makarova is too good a player to not realise her potential simply because she likes being below the radar. I hope her support group helps her through this.
But for now let’s enjoy the final between the two grand veterans of the women’s games. Such opportunities might not come too often in the future.
— Gameplan
