AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2015

pretty much everything went as expected. Stosur's early troubles with Niculescu were entertaining but that was never going to be an upset. 100% expected the JaJa and Petkorazzi upsets (how Madison Brengle and her nothingy game are entrenching themselves on tour I have no idea but the results are happening). Also expected the Thiem non-upset of Princess Agut. One tight set, one easy set is an exact reprise of the Woz/Townsend match from Auckland. Azza has never been troubled by Stephens, even at the start of her own decline or at Stephens' supposed peak.

Kanepi can get in the hall of shame for losing to Falconi though, who does that. And it was a tough draw but Watson should've done a bit better than 4 and 0 to Tsveti. Jay-Z winning three games off Asian WC Chang suggests she's done in singles too :(

Rogowska entering her 7th year of being handed free passes into Slams just for being Australian. 10 WCs, of which seven have been R1 losses. Never cracked the top 100. Never been ranked high enough for direct entry. Never managed to come through qualifying. Her only other Slam MD appearance was as a lucky loser at the USO 2013, where she was promptly double bagelled by Errani. An entire career sustained by nationalism.

Getting the "bitching about the Australian media" portion out of the way - if there's one thing worse than the usual crowd of dickhead commentators... it's when they decide to give us a "treat" and let Henri Leconte in the commentary booth. THE WORST.

Pouille and Monfils both playing well :)

don't wanna be That Guy who goes on about people who've conveniently taken out slam-nation citizenship or what not, but srsly, Tomljanovic/Rogers as the last match on a prime court? GTFO, neither of these players should have any business playing a 1R match on a night session.

omg that Pouille miss at 4-4 30-30

omggggg

Pouille's volleyed so well all match and then gets broken there after fucking up two volleys and then letting one go that landed in on BP

Love Gael and that was a fabulous match but what a gutting way to lose for Pouille.

Wtf happened to Goffin??

Was dusting off all the Maria Sharaplolva gags but she came back from being served against for the match. A *lot* of stupid mistakes though.

I just dozed off for a bit, and Roger appears to have dropped the first set while I wasn't looking.

I did wonder whether Goffin might be the type to flop at Slams, where Baghdatis typically peaks...

The Sharapova match sounds as aggravating as usual, not sure whether to LOL that Panova took more than 5 games off her or to be annoyed at the two MPs missed.

Mladenovic/Mattek-Sands was a nice contrast. Mladenovic is so slow to react on the baseline though, and she absolutely ballsed up an easy SP in the second set TB. Great win for BMS on her way back up the rankings though.

Murray trashing Matosevic, delicious after his comments about female coaches.

Smyczek was really unimpressive in the fourth set. No idea how he got two sets off Rafa.

Rafa was pretty bad in set 3. Smyczek is hitting lots of lovely winners though.

Tomic-Kohli was a good match, much better than the Rafa shitfest

Bepa vs Serena yesssss no matter what happens it's all good

feel quite badly for zvonareva now, from 2 set pt chances, serenas p much broken her spirit

zvonareva nearly injured herself going for serenas return winners

LOL at the Muguruza / Hantuchova scoreline.

omg @ mannarino, looks like hes been lost in the desert

oof, pironkova bagelled by domi

Jerzy/Gael is very good so far

Surprised Vera made that much out of the match.

so Day 1 used up our surprise quotient huh? Pironkova not upsetting Cibulkova is the biggest shock to me. Also didn't expect Bepa to challenge Serena in any way.

Monfils playing well against Janowicz...

Vika / C Woz is v good, they match each other well to produce long intense rallies.

Azarenka's superior weight of shot really told in that set.

Absolutely, though Woz is almost at peak defending here and Vika's had to be fully on to get things done.

wau @ that return that won Janowicz the set. 5th set, which will surprise no one...

xp yes, given how up-and-down Vika's been since her return I'm surprised that she sustained her good play, but obv there's still time for that to change...

It didn't change.

#back

And Janowicz breaks in the fifth with a BH DTL banger

so happy for Jerzy

ughhhhhh Vandeweghe beating Stosur was NID but this clear run to R4 for Colleen is so gross

and looooooooooool @ Hewitt losing from two sets up

YESS seeya later Hewitt

Berdych has looked fantastic but he's in Nadal's quarter so it doesn't matter

Dimitrov grinding out a win with that Rasheed fitness training, still don't like all the pushing he does

xp nadal was pretty undercooked on Wednesday night, I'd be surprised if he gets much further

I hope Dimitrov and Murray can do a repeat of their awesome match from Acapulco last year. Similar playing conditions.

that match might have been the best non-slam match of the year

What's Federer doing?

losing?

Impressive mental resilience from Seppi, but lol @ Fed

That Seppi MP!!

Also Wozniacki's lack of any answers to Vika's relentless FF CCs followed by a DTL approach shot was kind of embarrassing.

I mean that was amazing

(Seppi I mean)

Hearing Sascha Bajin commentating on Serena's R2 match was bizarre

And belated lol @ Ivanovic. Last 4 slams: R3 R3 R2 R1

omg Fed. what a way to lose. I swear I've seen a ton more players lose key points via leaving balls that drop in than usual this year.

Tomic/Groth second set TB was pure comedy, both DFing for their lives on SPs. NID that Tomic got it together though.

Zarina not putting up the fight I thought she would vs Ma$ha :((((((

Baby jesus wept wtf

serena's pathetic AO performances lately. i can't. looking so disinterested. i have a dissertation to write and i'll be too depressed to do it if you lose so come the fuck on

right I'm done.

shockingly bad

imminent bagel?

lmao what a way to hand over a third break

Well, that was some whimper Murray slid out with there.

Well might he break all his racquets. Winning one of the last 13 games from 2-0 up in the third.

Pathetic, but also I'm really sad to see him end an otherwise very successful tournament like that because I love the Muzz/Mesmo coaching pairing :(

Your roll of honour:

Men's singles: Novak Djokovic
Women's singles: Serena Williams
Men's doubles: Simone Bolelli & Fabio Fognini
Women's doubles: Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova
Mixed doubles: Martina Hingis & Leander Paes
Boys' singles: Roman Safiullin
Girls' singles: Tereza Mihalikova
Boys' doubles: Jake Delaney & Marc Polmans
Girls' doubles: Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova

those last couple sets... #bestof3

murray winning would've been a nice bonus, but extreeeeeemely pleasing tournament :)

New rankings

1. Serena Williams (1)
2. Maria Sharapova (2)
3. Simona Halep (3)
4. Petra Kvitova (4)
5. Caroline Wozniacki (8)
6. Ana Ivanovic (5)
7. Eugenie Bouchard (7)
8. Agnieszka Radwanska (6)
9. Ekaterina Makarova (11)
10. Angelique Kerber (9)
11. Venus Williams (18)
12. Andrea Petkovic (13)
13. Sara Errani (14)
14. Flavia Pennetta (12)
15. Lucie Safarova (16)
16. Jelena Jankovic (15)
17. Carla Suarez Navarro (17)
18. Dominika Cibulkova (10)
19. Alize Cornet (19)
20. Madison Keys (35)
21. Shuai Peng (22)
22. Karolina Pliskova (20)
23. Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova (23)
24. Garbine Muguruza (24)
25. Samantha Stosur (21)
26. Elina Svitolina (26)
27. Svetlana Kuznetsova (27)
28. Sabine Lisicki (28)
29. Varvara Lepchenko (30)
30. Caroline Garcia (36)
...
34. Irina-Camelia Begu (42)
41. Sloane Stephens (32)
46. Madison Brengle (64)
49. Victoria Azarenka (44)
66. Yanina Wickmayer (80)

1. Novak Djokovic (1)
2. Roger Federer (2)
3. Rafael Nadal (3)
4. Andy Murray (6)
5. Kei Nishikori (5)
6. Milos Raonic (8)
7. Tomas Berdych (7)
8. Marin Cilic (9)
9. Stan Wawrinka (4)
10. David Ferrer (10)
11. Grigor Dimitrov (11)
12. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (12)
13. Ernests Gulbis (13)
14. Feliciano Lopez (14)
15. Kevin Anderson (15)
16. Roberto Bautista Agut (16)
17. Tommy Robredo (17)
18. John Isner (21)
19. Gilles Simon (20)
20. Gael Monfils (19)
21. David Goffin (22)
22. Fabio Fognini (18)
23. Philipp Kohlschreiber (24)
24. Alexandr Dolgopolov (23)
25. Ivo Karlovic (27)
26. Leonardo Mayer (26)
27. Julien Benneteau (25)
28. Richard Gasquet (28)
29. Lukas Rosol (30)
30. Pablo Cuevas (29)
...
35. Nick Kyrgios (53)
36. Gilles Muller (42)
46. Viktor Troicki (54)
48. Bernard Tomic (66)