In the longest Grand Slam final match in history, world #1 Novak Djokovic beat world #2 Rafael Nadal in a 5th set that finished around 130a in Australia, almost six hours after the match had begun.
Nadal brought everything he had, and got closer to beating Djoko than he had in all of 2011. You’ll see some amazing shots and rallies from both in this video from australianopen.com.
The rest of the tennis world might be asking itself today: if Nadal can play that well and NOT beat Djokovic, what hope does anyone else have right now?
Tagged as:
Novak Djokovic,
Rafael Nadal
Hewitt defeats Raonic and Father Time all at once
Aussie Lleyton Hewitt – once the world’s best player – won his 3rd-round Australian Open match against rising Canadian star Milos Raonic.
This wasn’t the expected result: Hewitt is 30 and sits 181st in the world while Raonic is the world #23 and is looking as if he could seriously improve that ranking by summer. Raonic is the biggest server on the tour; against Hewitt his first serves averaged 214 kph and at one point he scorched one by Hewitt that clocked 231 kph.
But the big serve wasn’t enough. On the unfamiliar stage of centre court, Raonic cracked a few times when he shouldn’t have, and the much more seasoned Hewitt was able to win some key points. With the crowd behind him, Hewitt rallied to win 3 straight sets after dropping the first one.
Put it down to experience: Hewitt has plenty and Raonic needs more. Hewitt moves on to play world #1 Novak Djokovic, while Raonic will doubtless be watching films of the match with his coach.
Tagged as:
Milos Raonic
the last thing opponents see before the thunder
Rocketman Milos Raonic – with his crushing serve – will face homeboy Lleyton Hewitt in the 3rd round of the Australian Open.
Hewitt used to be world #1, many years and many surgeries ago. He’s now 31, Raonic just 21 and currently ranked #23 – and rising. Lleyton’s going to have to hang on and use every bit of his accumulated wisdom to survive Sonic Raonic’s attack.
Raonic’s comments this year, after coming back from his own operation, show he’s very determined to reach the top 10. He talks of being one of the world’s best, of playing consistently on centre court at every tournament he enters.
If Raonic beats Hewitt, he’ll likely end up with his first-ever date with world #1 Novak Djokovic. On centre court, no doubt…
Tagged as:
Milos Raonic,
Novak Djokovic
Nothing adds to world-class tennis quite like world-class creative writing. Fighting hard for enough verbs to describe today’s first-round action in the first Grand Slam of the year, TSN’s mobile site today set a high mark early for 2012 with some outstanding thesaurus-consulting.
Here’s what the poets & scholars at the site first came up with to chronicle the wins of Nadal, Federer, Berdych, Fish, Almagro, del Potro, Dolgopolov, and others:
- “cruised past”
- “leveled”
- “posted a decision over”
- “rolled to a victory over”
- “overcame a first-set defeat to record a victory over”
- “battled back from an early setback to move on”
As the battle raged on, however, with more matches to report on, ever more obscure reaches of the thesaurus were plumbed as the writer(s) found their bags o’ verbs unduly taxed:
- “downed”
- “handled”
- “waltzed past”
- “fought back to dismiss”
- “took out”
- “knocked out”
- “rolled past”
- “was driven out by”
Like a flurry of aces in a late-game tiebreaker, though, the best strokes were saved for the last few lines of this timeless piece:
- “swatted”
- “outlasted”
- “got past”
- “earned a victory over”
Read the full piece on TSN’s mobile app – and stay tuned for more fine tennis reporting.
