MELBOURNE—Records are made to be broken, for players and writers alike. The longest match in Australian Open history led to the latest article filings that many of us here could remember. In my case, it wasn’t even close. I hit “publish” on my post at 7:30 this morning and went to bed around 8:00, approximately the same time that Novak Djokovic himself finally called it a night—or day, or morning, or whatever it was at that point.
Last night’s final between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal was a classic, but even before I left the pressroom there were already questions, discussions, meetings being called, to try to decide whether it was the greatest ever. My first answer is: No, it wasn’t. My second answer it: That’s no slight. Djokovic-Nadal was a notch below the 2008 Wimbledon men’s final overall, and Rafa’s previous longest-Aussie-match-ever, against Fernando Verdasco in the semis in 2009, was played at a higher level for longer. But last night’s final was special because of the raw effort from both men, and because each showed his vulnerability and overcame it. In its brilliance and its flaws and its sportsmanship afterward, it was a human drama and a match that reminded us why we love sports.
This Aussie Open shouldn’t have ended any other way. On both the men's and the women’s sides, the year's first Slam didn’t disappoint. The final weekend especially, with four excellent semifinals, a breakthrough performance from Victoria Azarenka, and the Melbourne Massacre between Djokovic and Nadal, was one we’ll be mining thoroughly in our end-of-season wrap-ups in December.
For now, it’s time for an end of tournament wrap-up—i.e., a snap judgment—on what we just saw.
*****
Novak Djokovic He’s bulletproof at the moment. Last year his drive to the title was machine-like—it was nine sets up, nine sets down from the quarters on. This year nothing came easily; his last two matches alone took more than 10 hours. Maybe it was the new expectations, maybe it was the return of the clogged nose, or maybe that’s just how Djokovic is and will continue to be, but he needed, in the words of Rafael Nadal, to “suffer and struggle” this time before he could get it done. That he still got it done with back to back 7-5 in the fifth set marathon wins over players as good as Nadal and Andy Murray rates with the all-time, all-around efforts in tennis history. A+
Victoria Azarenka If it had been Federer or Djokovic or Nadal who had blitzed their final-round opponent so convincingly, many of us would likely be calling Azarenka's 3 and 0 demolition of multiple Slam winner Maria Sharapova a peerless, all-time performance. Vika’s triumph was, if nothing else, a shot in the arm for women’s tennis. The tour gets a No. 1 player who can win the No. 1 events, and—knock graphite—one who is in it for the long, consistent haul. Like Djokovic, this reformed hothead showed some weakness along the way, and then blew past it. Best image: Vika, at a key moment late in the first set of the final, taking a serve, drilling a backhand return deep and down the middle, and knocking off the next swing volley from mid-air. That’s good tennis, and it might have saved the men an hour or two along the way. A+
Rafael Nadal I wrote at the start of the season that no matter what Rafa did or how well he played, he wouldn’t be able to judge his progress until he met his master, Novak Djokovic. Now he’s met him, and he almost beat him. While he could have done more, Nadal himself judged it to be a positive step. That’s an issue for the future. What was special to me about last night was seeing Nadal after the final, sitting in a chair waiting for the stultifying pre-trophy speeches to finish, and thinking about all of the classic matches he’d already been a part of at 25 years old. Wimbledon 2008, Wimbledon 2007, the Aussie semis and final 2009, Rome 2005, Rome 2006, Madrid 2009, the Olympic semis 2008, the Davis Cup final 2011, heck, Nalbandian at Indian Wells 2009, and on from there. He had won virtually all of the close ones before, but it had never looked easy—unlike most other clutch performers, you could always see Nadal struggling to keep the “colm.” This time, at 4-2, 30-15 in the fifth, he couldn’t keep the colm. This time he was playing a guy who made him pay for it. Nadal may or may not end up as the greatest player of all time, but whether he’s winning or losing, very few, if any, players careers’ have been as epic. Upped half a grade for his amazingly upbeat post-match press conference, which included this comment:
Q: “Are you going to watch [the match] again on tape?”
Rafa: “Too long. Highlights only.” A+
Andy Murray The consensus is that Murray has now proven that he will win a Grand Slam, that it’s just a matter of time. I hate to disagree, but I’m still not sure. This was his most courageous late-round Slam loss thus far, and it included the most promising three-game run of his career, from 2-5 to 5-5 in the fifth set against Djokovic. Still, when he got the lead to start the fourth, he didn’t know what to do with it. I think, and hope, he’ll handle it better next time, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. A-
Maria Sharapova You have to admire her commitment, despite all the money in the world, to the task of winning more majors, especially when it's starting to feel like tennis’s great Sisyphean task. She keeps lugging her shaky serve up the hill, getting within touching distance of the summit, and then being blown right back down to the bottom by a hot-handed, and usually younger, opponent. I’m glad she still cares as much as she does. Upped a notch for taking her mortifying final-round loss so graciously. Docked a notch for her too-haughty remarks about that “unimportant” person, Agnieszka Radwanska. A-
Greg Rusedski The player turned commentator unintentionally lightened the mood for me in the wee hours last night. This was his quote, about Djoko-Rafa, and the unique challenge of this game: “I mean, what other sport do you play almost six hours of tennis in?” Thanks for narrowing it down for us, Greg. A-
Roger Federer Again, he looked untouchable until the semis. Again, once there, he faltered in the key moments and watched as a critical, and remarkable, shot from his opponent dropped on the line. He couldn’t get past Djokovic at two majors last year; now Nadal has shut him out. So No. 3 is where the “best player of the history” rightly resides at the moment. Even if those early wins in Oz didn’t lead anywhere, though, his masterly deconstructions of Tomic and del Potro were must-see viewing for the artistic tennis lover. The less the rest of the game looks like his, the more I want to see him play. I'm betting he'll be rewarded for his continued persistence in the end. Mark of a pro: He doesn't rationalize his Slam defeats, or lower his expectations at these events, because of his age. B+
Petra Kvitova The last game against Sharapova, when she staggered through a break of serve in a daze, was a bummer. But this was an encouraging run for Kvitova, and for those who want to see her succeed consistently. She seems to believe in herself a little more with each win. B+
Lleyton Hewitt The feel on the lob, the smarts on the serve, the wily veteran craftiness when he was behind, the unsentimental farewell, and the insightful commentary once it was all over: Rusty, maybe we really miss you. B+
Kei Nishikori He’s not just a brand pitchman anymore. Nishikori has Bollettieri-ball down pat, and an important Slam win, over Tsonga in the fourth round, under his belt—though he could play faster. Upped a notch for honoring his promise to play mixed with Kimiko Date-Krumm the day before his quarterfinal. B+
Bernard Tomic His best event yet, and proof that his competitive skills are advanced for his age. The deer in the headlights look against Federer was excusable, but not owning up to challenging a disputed call against Dolgopolov wasn’t. I want to like him. B+
Ekaterina Makarova Her determination in the face of victory over Serena was nice to see, as was a new face, for a day anyway, in the press room. B
Tomas Berdych He helped give us two excellent sets against Nadal. Yes, he should have shaken Almagro’s hand, but how many of the handshakes that actually happened were as fun to watch as his snub? B
Juan Martin del Potro Is he still on his way back? Or has he settled in where he belongs, a definite tier below the best? With each Slam, the latter looks more likely. We’re going to need him for variety in the semis soon. B-
Jo Wilfried Tsonga Once again, we can’t trust him at the Slams. Should this affect our enjoyment of his shotmaking and charisma, and his success elsewhere? Nope. But watching it go for nought at the majors is frustrating. C+
Marcos Baghdatis Smashing four racquets was the smartest thing he did Down Under. C
Gael Monfils Coo-coo against Kuku: His most perverse performance yet. The crowd atmosphere he generated was great, but as usual he pulled the rug out by blowing the match in the end. D
*****
That's it from Oz. I think it was a record-breaking week, words-wise, for me as well. As with six-hour tennis matches, this can be a good and bad thing, depending on your point of view. I will say that this was probably the best major I've covered since I started doing them in 2004. It's probably not over yet for me, either. I'll be back with some aftermath posts when I return, and wake up.
MELBOURNE—Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal hugged, loosely and wearily, in front of the umpire’s chair at 1:37 A.M. on Monday morning in Rod Laver Arena. Nadal had already walked around the net post and was heading for his sideline bench. When they let each other go, Djokovic turned around and tore off his shirt as he walked, screaming, toward his player’s box. A few seconds later, Nadal took his shirt off as well, and began searching for another in his racquet bag. It made sense: The two players had already stripped everything from each other, physically, emotionally, and every other way, over the previous six hours.
“It was obvious to everyone,” the winner said later, “that we had taken every last drop of energy from our bodies.”
Djokovic clenched his fists as he looked up to his delirious coach and girlfriend. Cameramen scrambled across the arena and surrounded them. Thousands of people in the crowd craned their necks to watch. Nadal, who was in the dark on the other side of the court—the lights had begun to dim for the trophy ceremony—kept his back turned to the scene as he put on another shirt. Finally he had to sneak a peak; he turned and watched Djokovic for a second. Nadal had celebrated wins like this many times before, and he knew he could so easily have been doing it again at that moment. You could have forgiven him for thinking back to a simple passing shot he had missed when he was ahead in the fifth set. You could have forgiven him for wanting to walk straight out of the stadium and leave this long night of effort, one of his greatest, behind. After all of that effort, nearly six hours of it, it brought him nothing but defeat.
Later, though, as he spoke to the press, it was clear that Nadal hadn’t been crushed by it. It wasn’t the loss that was foremost in his mind. It was the moment, the evening, the match, the feeling of being part of something special, of rising to his opponent's challenge, that he talked about, and that lifted him.
“This match is gonna be in my mind,” said Nadal afterward, “not because I lost, but because of the way we played. . . . It was nice to be there, fighting.”
This was how the 2012 Australian Open men's final ended, with talk from both players of the match itself, of the pleasure of the effort, rather than of victory or defeat. Of course, that doesn’t mean Djokovic, who belted out “Highway to Hell” in the players’ lounge later, wasn’t happy he won.
*****
Here’s the question: What, in its 5 hours and 53 minutes, did Djokovic vs. Nadal not have? I think I’ve got it narrowed down: There weren’t any tweeners. Actually, no, I’m not going to say that. I did turn my head away a couple of times. I’ll bet each of them put one right on the baseline while I wasn’t looking. After tonight, there’s obviously nothing these guys can’t do on a tennis court.
The match was the longest in Aussie Open history, and the longest Grand Slam final ever. As Djokovic said later, it had "everything you can imagine." There are a lot of ways to understand this one, too many for me to try to weave them all together right now (it’s 6:00 in the morning). Here are five; I'll take them one at a time.
*****
As proof that the old Nole can win big, too
Last year, we said Djokovic won because he was fitter and calmer. He had more belief; the old, edgy, pull-the-trigger-at-the-first-sign-of-trouble Nole had been left behind. He won because he had grown up.
Except that this past week, the old edgy, heavy-breathing, trigger-pulling Nole returned. And he still won.
Any tennis instructor trying to teach a young player the value of positive body language must have cringed at Djokovic’s performances this week. The Serb began matches talking to himself and his friends, throwing his hands in the air when he missed, and shuffling to the sidelines with his head down in exhaustion and pain. Djokovic puts all of his troubles out there for his opponent, and the world, to see.
And that’s also how he gets rid of them. It’s as Djokovic must have something go wrong, as it did in the first set tonight, before he can relax, forget about the pressure and the setting, and let loose. After five games, Djokovic was already on his third racquet (he didn’t like the string jobs) and his second shirt. By the start of the second set, though, he was at his ease in rallies, breathing fine, and pumping himself up. By the third set he was pouncing on everything in sight. It’s nice to know: Nole—who won the semis and final 7-5 in the fifth set—can be himself, neuroses and ailments and vulnerabilities and all, and still win.
*****
As another example of the eerie mirror image between Djokovic-Nadal and Nadal-Federer
The “trivalry” between these three shows us again how much of tennis is about matchups, about how two players’ games, and heads, uniquely interact.
Nadal uses his high, heavy, lefty forehand to Federer’s one-handed backhand as his fail-safe backup; Djokovic uses his high, heavy, forehand to Nadal’s weaker backhand as his fail-safe backup.
Against Djokovic, Nadal, so sure of his game plan against Federer, appears to have little idea how to construct points or where to start. Rafa can’t identify a weak spot, because there isn’t one. In some ways, Djokovic, who is best on hard courts and whose shots move through the court much more easily, reveals Nadal as the clay-court specialist he once was.
Nobody can exploit Nadal's biggest weakness, his serve, like Djokovic, who owns the best return in the game. Rafa was so amazed by this shot that he burst out in praise of it tonight, without being asked. "Is something unbelievable how he returns, no? His return is probably one of the best of history."
When Federer plays Nadal, Federer’s fans ask, “Why isn’t he more aggressive? Why doesn’t he do this, or that, or something else?” It looks like he should be winning. When Nadal plays Djokovic, Nadal’s fans ask the same exasperated questions. It’s not so easy. Djokovic hits with deceptive weight and accuracy, and he’s better than anyone at forcing Nadal to hit to his backhand. He’s always going to have the advantage when he does that. When Nadal plays Federer, he can play his game, while his opponent must find a solution. When Nadal plays Djokovic, the roles are reversed. It's Nole's who's comfortable, and Rafa who's searching.
There is one area of similarity: After this match, Rafa and Nole will likely be elevated to must-see rivalry status, next to Rog and Rafa, something that wasn't necessarily true when Djokovic owned him last year. (Nadal was just happy that he gave him a better run tonight than he did in 2011.) Djokovic may have joined the brand-name rivalry club tonight. We've had Fedal; this was the best of Rafole.
*****
As proof that we can still relate to the world’s best tennis players
It’s been theorized that fewer people play tennis than they once did because they're disconnected from what the pros are doing—it’s like a different sport. But anyone can relate to what each player went through tonight when they had the match on their racquet. Each of them blew it once; one of them was lucky enough to get a second chance.
Djokovic tightened up in the fourth set. He was ahead 4-3 and was up 0-40 on Nadal’s serve. This looked like the end. For three sets, Djokovic had been dominant; I had never seen Nadal as despondent as he was when he lost the third set. But he got the score back to 30-40, and Djokovic, who had been ripping backhand returns all night, suddenly guided this one back safely. He lost the point and the game. The set went to a tiebreaker. Djokovic went up 5-3; again it looked like the end. Then, two points from the title, he proceeded to send a forehand wide, another into the net, and another wide to lose the set.
Now it was Nadal’s turn. With Djokovic reeling and the crowd pushing him forward, Rafa went ahead 4-2 and 30-15 on his serve. Djokovic came to the net and popped up a sitter volley. Nadal closed, with an open court down the line. He pushed it wide. The crowd couldn't believe it; they cheered as if it had been in. Rafa challenged, but it was hopeless. He nervously lost that game and all of his momentum with it. Normally, Nadal hits bravely in the clutch moments—his career five-set record was 15-3 coming in. But this time he retreated. His second serve floated, and he moved back to where he’s always been comfortable, behind the baseline. His defense from there was incredible, but, again, it was the wrong matchup. Djokovic controlled the rallies in the last three games. There were some shaky moments, including a botched overhead, but he didn’t choke twice.
*****
As a testament to both players’ fighting spirits
We won’t remember the nerves in this one; we’ll remember the fight to rise above them. Nadal has won on willpower dozens, if not hundreds of times, before. This time Nadal was trapped, cornered, for three sets; every step forward was followed by a setback, every winner by an error. But he survived the fourth set.
Djokovic’s steely moment was less obvious but ultimately more important. At 4-4 in the fifth set, he had a break point for a chance to serve it out, but he ended up losing a long game. After the changeover, and after five hours of play, he came out fresh, smacking the ball as hard and confidently and accurately as he had all day. He won the last three games. While Rafa retreated, it was Nole, the Nole who was so overwrought to start, who kept his head at the end.
As for shot-making, their seemed to be a million balls hit in this one, and you may have your personal favorite. Here are two of mine. Djokovic reaching out with one hand on his backhand side and poking a seemingly sure Nadal winner onto the sideline, then finishing the point by going behind Nadal with a curling forehand—athleticism and élan in one. The Nadal shot I remember most was a jumping tomahawk forehand that seemed to be hit after he’d done a 360 in the air, early in the fifth set—an example of how he would leave no stone unturned, or shot untried, tonight.
*****
As a testament to the sportsmanship of the era
I felt bad for Rafa as he shook hands with Djokovic. I wondered how he would get that missed pass out of his mind. I wondered if he would break down in tears on the trophy stand.
We got none of that. What we got instead were words that spoke to why you play the sport in the first place—for matches like this, even when you lose them. In my favorite moment of the evening, Rafa raised and shook his second-place plate with a sad pride.
“When you are with passion for the game,” Nadal said, “when you are ready to compete, you are able to suffer and enjoy suffering, no?"
But it isn’t just a feeling you have on a tennis court, and it isn’t something, in Rafa’s mind, that only star athletes can understand. It’s there for anyone who tries for something greater.
“I don’t know if I express it very well,” he went on, “but is something that maybe you understand. So today I had this feeling, and is really a good one. I enjoyed. I suffered during the match, but I enjoyed all the troubles that I had during all the match.
“I enjoyed. I tried to be there, to find solutions all the time. I played a lot with my heart and lot with my mind, that’s something that is nice to be around, and [it’s not just about] tennis.”
Djokovic was gracious in his own press conference. He said that “both of them should have won.” But his best moment came on the winner’s stand. Nole took the trophy with a small, serious smile and immediately turned back to Rafa to congratulate him. Djokovic had made a lot of great moves on this night, but none was better or more appropriate than this one. He congratulated Nadal in the only way that made sense for this match, which was about sports as much as it was about players:
MELBOURNE—The final Grounds Pass of this year’s Aussie Open is being written on what feels like, through the early hours at least, the hottest day of the last two weeks. There’s a chance of rain tonight as well, which could mean our first roof-closing.
I had a preview of where I’m heading in a couple of days at my local café this morning. From a table across the room I began to hear something I hadn’t heard for a while, something I’d forgotten, something out of the distant past: Adults using the word “like” in the middle of sentences. “It was just, like, so ridiculous what happened to her.” Americans! Am I ready to go back?
Predictions are Like . . . Something Or Other: Everybody’s Got One All that’s left for the papers are the prognostications. Most prominent is Rod Laver’s in the Herald–Sun. He surprises me by taking Rafael Nadal over Novak Djokovic. After reading him, I’m still not exactly sure what his reasons are.
“Assuming both players are close to 100 percent as they can be,” the Rocket writes, “I think Nadal is playing a little better. Having said that, the only advantage I give to Nadal is that he is fresher, or should be.”
See, Rocket, the prediction game, trickier than it looks, isn't it?
I’m surprised to see Laver go against recent history. I’m equally surprised that four of the six Herald-Sun sportswriters who were polled also went with Nadal. I think at this point you have to take Djokovic over Rafa until proven otherwise. As one of the two HS writers to pick the Djoker, Jon Ralph, puts it, “He just finds a way to beat the left-hander.”
As for those who make their livings doing this kind of thing, they’re going with Nole: $1.65 to $2.30 for Nadal. According to the money, Djokovic in four is the most likely outcome. A little surprising to me is that Djokovic winning a fifth set is deemed more likely than Nadal winning a fifth. If it goes the distance, I think I would take Rafa.
Nadal himself seemed to have taken a lesson from Novak's last five-set victim, Andy Murray. Rafa said yesterday, in his Rafa way, that Djokovic's ability to go from exhausted to awesome in two hours time was "funny, no?" and that it was, "difficult to imagine he has these problems." He also gave Murray the best piece of advice I've heard: Essentially, you can't play a fourth set like he did against Nole and expect to win a Grand Slam.
*****
With a Whimper Rather Than a Shriek Elsewhere in the Herald-Sun, Jon Ralph remarks on the serially disappointing nature of the women’s finals here. “Might as well come out with it,” he writes, “the Australian Open women’s final is becoming one of the great anti-climaxes in sport.”
“Four times in the past seven years a finalist has won three games or fewer—Dinara Safina in 2009, Justine Henin in 2006, and Sharapova in 2007.”
According to Ralph, fans who bought their pricey tickets, “got an 88-minute procession where the loudest cheers were for hecklers from the crowd and video referral decisions.”
Also noticeable were empty rows of those pricey seats around the top of the arena.
*****
He’s Up, He’s Down, He’s Up, He’s . . . Today it's Age columnist Tim Lane’s turn to decide which direction the world No. 3 is heading. Lane takes the mythic route: “Roger Federer, certainly, has become a Job-like figure—endowed with great gifts, admired and praised but later teased and wounded by the Gods.”
I guess that's one way of looking at this stage of Federer’s career. In his prime, he was untouchable; everything he did turned to gold, or at least a Grand Slam win. Now, at 30, when he needs a break, he can’t catch one.
Lane is surprised that someone of Federer’s stature seems determined to keep at it well past 30, but eventually concludes: “Who are we to argue?” He cites three recent greats who “defied calls to give it away when things got tough” and “ultimately came out ahead.” Two are cricketers, Tendulkar and Ponting, and one is another tennis player, Andre Agassi.
*****
The Sport of Wrath? Tennis and myth is the subject of another Age column, by Michael Coulter. He writes about the phenomenon of the tennis tantrum, and how the equivalent of normal aggressive behavior in team sports is blown up to gigantic proportions in tennis.
“Unlike, say, football, everything that is said or done on the court is captured by the cameras,” Coulter writes. “There are no whispered sledges or sneak kidney punches at the bottom of the pack. There is no outlet for anger in tennis except for a good hard tirade.”
Coulter goes on to invoke Dante and the concept of wrath. This is the sin of false righteousness—overreation, essentially—and one that tennis players routinely commit against officials, in part because they have nowhere else to direct their anger.
In the end, for these reasons, Coulter thinks there’s no stopping the tantrum, and there’s no stopping our guilty pleasure in watching them, over and over:
“The great Marcos Baghdatis Racquet Massacre of 2012 has been shown roughly every 15 minutes for the past two weeks, while Channel 7 concocted a mini-documentary out of Snub-gate, when dastardly Czech Tomas Berdych refused to shake the hand of his opponent.”
*****
Odd, and End
—What’s the secret to getting to the top of the men’s game? Never, ever, follow your serve to the net. As the Herald-Sun notes, “Djokovic has won 664 points for the tournament, with just two of them from serve-volleying. Nadal has won 681 points for the tournament, with only four of them from serve-volleying.” I’m not sure if that counts points returning serve, which would obviously make serve-and-volley impossible. Either way, these guys hang around the baseline a lot. Djokovic even apologized to Rod Laver himself for it after his match with Andy Murray.
—The juniors took over center court yesterday. First, 15-year-old Taylor Townsend of the U.S. won the girls, then Aussie Luke Saville, a loser in the final here last year, edged his Canadian opponent in the boys’ final.
Townsend teared up during her trophy speech. Saville . . . went in another direction. After thanking the sponsors and the ball kids like a 20-year veteran, the deep-voiced Saville wound up to this rousing finish: “It feels a s***load better than last year!”
Upon hearing those moving words, the trophy presenter hurried back to the mike and said, quietly, “Um, well done, Luke.”
*****
I doubt Rafa or Nole will be able to—or have any desire to—match Saville’s speech-making skills tonight, but enjoy the men’s final anyway, wherever you are and whatever time it may be. I'll leave you with a clip of what might be the closest historical parallel to the match we're about to see. At the Aussie Open in 1975, Jimmy Connors was coming off a three-Slam season, while John Newcombe was a former No. 1 on the slight decline. He hadn't gotten a chance to play Jimbo at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open the year before, but he had his revenge in this one. The venue, the surface, the clothes, the style of the play, and the players' demeanors are miles apart from what we see now, but the situation is similar.
You can watch the conclusion of that match here; unfortunately, that video can't be embedded. So here's a clip of one fairly amazing rally from it. (I"m not sure what Jimbo is doing at the start, but if you weren't a fan of his "antics," you might want to avert your eyes for the first five seconds.)
MELBOURNE—“Just a few points here or there.” We know the phrase well; that’s all there is, sometimes, between winning and losing. But rarely has a big-time tennis match turned so quickly and decisively on a point or two as Victoria Azarenka’s 6-3, 6-0 win in the Australian Open final over Maria Sharapova did tonight.
I don’t mean to say that that was all that separated them; this was an even bigger blowout than the last two major women’s finals, at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and that’s saying something. What I mean is that it only took a loose error or two from Sharapova, in the third game, to spin the match 180 degrees and transform an extremely nervy Azarenka into an extremely imposing one—as well as the new, Slam-full No. 1 player in the world.
Azarenka was making her Grand Slam final debut, and she came out looking like a rookie. Sharapova won the coin toss and let her serve first; it looked like a canny move when Azarenka double-faulted at 30-all and was broken. When Sharapova tore through her in the second game, and Azarenka stopped running and let a winner go past her at game point, nightmare visions of other debut Slam finalists—Dinara Safina, for Aussie fans—began to dance in our heads. After 10 points, Azarenka had made six unforced errors. After double faulting for 0-30 in the third game, she looked certain to go down two breaks.
Sharapova made an error. Azarenka hit a good serve. Sharapova made another error. Then Azarenka, with her first really confident swing of the night, took a high forehand and threaded it up the line for a winner, and her first hold. She fist-pumped and practically leaped to the sidelines. You could see even then, without knowing what would eventually happen—i.e., that she would lose just one more game—that Vika had shaken loose.
“I was super nervous,” admitted Azarenka, who said she had been ready to get out there hours earlier. “The first games were kind of a disaster.”
Then this self-described ex-head case went back to the mantra that has served her so well recently: “I just got back in the moment."
Of course, even if it hadn’t happened then, it was probably going to happen for Azarenka eventually. It was her night, her tournament, and her year so far.
“She did everything better than I did today,” a subdued Sharapova said afterward. “She was the one who was taking the first ball and hitting it deep. I was always the one running around like a rabbit.”
Asked whether she had noticed Azarenka’s nerves at the start, Sharapova said that sooner or later, her opponent was going to get rolling. “I had a lot of matches in my career where I had terrible starts,” she said. “Sometimes those just don’t really matter until you see what happens in the end. From my side, I think the switch went off.”
Azarenka went from finding her feet to soaring above her opponent a few games later. She did, as Sharapova said, everything well—tactically, technically, emotionally, and with variety. At 3-3, 30-30, she surprised Sharapova with a strong serve into her body; then she lofted a soft topspin lob winner to hold. In the next game, in some of the last points of the evening that could be termed crucial, Azarenka was even better.
Sharapova served at 3-4 and the game see-sawed to a third deuce. On that point, Azarenka took a second serve, drilled it deep and up the middle—a sure-fire play for her the whole tournament—and knocked off a swing volley. On break point, she again dictated from the baseline, but this time she went the finesse route and ended it by cutting under a backhand drop shot at the last second. Sharapova had no chance.
She wouldn’t have another. If the first set was about Azarenka rising to the moment, the second was about Sharapova trying to join her there, and failing. She tried to wrest control of the rallies, and often she worked herself into a winning position. But there was an error waiting around every corner.
“There was no way I was going to win the match if I was going to let her dictate,” Sharapova said. "But yeah, I think maybe I overdid it.”
In what seemed like no time at all—the seagulls had barely had time to gather to see their fellow shriekers—it was 5-0 and the 22-year-old Azarenka was stepping to the line to serve for her first Grand Slam. There was one more hiccup, an errant service toss that betrayed a hint of nerves, but otherwise she closed it out like she’d been doing it all her life. At deuce, Sharapova cracked a low, deep return at Azarenka’s formerly more erratic stroke, her forehand. There was nothing erratic about this response: Vika bent down like a hockey goalie and reflexed the ball down the line. She left Sharapova running like a rabbit one more time.
It had to be a disappointing loss for the 24-year-old Maria, who has slaved to find her old form and reach the Top 5 again. In the last year, she’s threatened at three separate majors but come up just short at all of them. What must be particularly galling is that she’s lost two to Slam-final neophytes—her experience has, essentially, counted for nothing. At the same time, there can’t be any second thoughts or regrets about this one. Sharapova was, as she said, thoroughly beaten. So thoroughly that she appeared shell-shocked in the moments after match point.
Sharapova walked off after the handshake and sat down on her sideline bench. She composed herself there, and didn’t move. The house lights began to dim as Azarenka bounced around, talking to whoever was in sight. Sharapova remained immobile, staring straight ahead. When the lights had gone down all the way, all you could see from across the arena was her bright green visor, still on her head. It didn’t move an inch.
Afterward, Azarenka, more effusive with the press than normal, credited her coach of two years, Sam Sumyk, for his patient work with her.
“Sam, I feel like he was not pushing me,” she said, “but guiding me toward that winning attitude. He helped me to find my way, not pushing his way. It’s important to have that education, that you have to learn to do it yourself, because in the end of the day you’re the one who’s holding the racquet.”
This win, over this opponent, brings Azarenka full circle. The rise that culminated with her first major title, and her ascendancy to No. 1, began last April with another pummeling of Sharapova, in the final in Key Biscayne. She built on that win, with a trip to the Wimbledon semifinals, with a valiant performance in defeat against Serena Williams at the U.S. Open, with a hard-fought loss to Petra Kvitova in the final of the WTA Tour championships. The whole time she seemed to be growing—calmer, more confident, sharper in her technique and tactics. She was the one holding the racquet out there, and this formerly volatile young player was taking responsibility for that fact. She wasn't, for one thing, breaking them anymore.
Azarenka was still learning in Melbourne. Last week, she said she had to make herself angry again to finish a match: she had gotten too calm out there. I speculated at the time that maintaining the balance between anger and ease on court would be precarious. Today, it sounded like she did just that.
When she was asked after the match what she had been feeling, Azarenka expressed what for her is a winning state of mind.
“I looked like I was in the zone,” she said. “But I was boiling inside.”
MELBOURNE—A lot of cool things happened to 15-year-old Taylor Townsend on her trip to Australia this month. She got a few toy kangaroo souvenirs for her family, as well as a couple of koala trophies. She watched Roger and Rafa go toe to toe—“I was in shock,” Townsend said of their rallies. She played inside Rod Laver Arena, made a Hawk-Eye challenge, and, for good measure, completed a rare sweep of the girls’ singles and doubles events. But all of that may have paled in comparison with her biggest find at Melbourne Park: four official Australian Open towels, sitting in the sun, unattended.
You must realize that these aren’t any old towels. The pros take them by the thousands each year. Rafael Nadal said today that he has 10 of them himself. So you can understand Townsend’s excitement when she stumbled upon her treasure. “I was surprised I saw four towels,” she said, flashing her braces in a wide grin. “Like two towels on one seat, two towels on the other. I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m gonna snag these.
“That’s exactly what I did.”
It’s been a banner Aussie Open for Townsend in many ways. Seeded 14th and competing in just her second junior Grand Slam, she became the youngest winner of a junior singles title here since her friend Donald Young did it at the same age six years ago. The two prodigies share more than just that piece of trivia. Both are left-handed, both are African-American, both hail from Chicago, and both have trained with Young’s parents, Donald, Sr., and Alona, in Atlanta. That’s where Townsend says she learned the attacking game and accomplished net play that may set her apart from her peers in the future. “Ever since I was young,” the apparently not-that-young-anymore Townsend says, “when I started playing tennis, we always did volleys. Mr. Young and Ms. Young, they always taught me just to move forward.”
Townsend says with a matter of fact smile that she has “pretty good hands.” Those hands were in evidence in her three-set win over Yulia Putintseva of Russia in today's girls’ final, a histrionical affair that ended with the loser smashing her racquet over and over and the winner falling to a scorched rubberized court before overflowing with that she called “tears of joy.” Townsend, who switched last year to the Prince EXO3 Tour and began using the company's Beast XP brand of spin-producing polyester strings, won the match with powerful forehands and two-handed backhands, some well-timed, precociously savvy net play, and a heavy, cutting lefty serve. Its motion, perhaps not surprisingly, bears more than a passing resemblance to Young’s.
“She has a great feel for the game,” says USTA director of player development Patrick McEnroe. Townsend left Atlanta last year to train at the USTA’s center in Boca Raton, Fla. “She has that easy power you love to see, and more variety than most of the girls. I think it’s a game that should translate well at the pro level.”
McEnroe also likes the fact that she’s working with what he calls a “tight-knit group of girls at Boca.” It includes 17-year-old Grace Min, last year’s U.S. Open junior champion, and 16-year-old Madison Keys. “I think it’s when you get those groups together that you see success at the higher level.” For U.S. tennis fans waiting for their next women’s champion, these are signs for cautious optimism.
“We practice together,” Townsend says of her days at Boca with Keys and Min. “We push each other.”
What’s next for Townsend? She seems ready for more, right away. A reporter asked her today if she was ready to “slow yourself down and not push success too fast?”
The outgoing Townsend didn’t hesitate with her answer. “No,” she said, “I mean, I’m just gonna keep doing what we’ve been doing. I’m playing a pro tournament in about a week. It’s a great opportunity, It’s a 100,000 [dollar tournament, in Midland, Texas], so I’m just gonna go there and do my thing.”
The fun stuff, the koalas and the kangaroos, is over fast, and the pro grind beckons. “You want a balance,” McEnroe says of how Townsend should proceed from here. “A mix of competition—play the big junior events and ease into women’s events, try to get into the Top 100 this year. The big thing is that she keeps playing her game."
Townsend is currently ranked No. 426, so there’s not shortage of work to be done in 2012. After this Aussie Open, though, when she’s back sweating with her friends on the hot courts in Boca, she’ll know what she’s playing for and what a big title feels like. And she’ll have a few nice towels to keep herself dry.
