Forty Deuce

The Emporer Has No Clothes

Well.  That was kind of a shit storm.

Oh, it had some good drama.  It even had some really good tennis-- Kim played the first set and a half superbly.  Justine had some flashes. But it would be silly to sit here and pretend that that was a good match, because... it was not.

Justine, understandably rusty and not back at full-strength in her first tournament back after almost two years, was wildly inconsistent.  And Kim rode all over her for the first hour and a half of that match, going up two breaks in the second.  And then, as she is wont to do, she collapsed.  Completely.  Actually, as far as Justine's comeback goes, it was reminiscent of nothing so much as her exhibition match against Flavia-- when Flavia was playing well, Justine could not keep up.  But when Flavia started going nutty, Justine took advantage.  Same thing here.  Sure, her play steps up, but it's hard not to play better when you're pretty confident that your opponent couldn't find the court with a GPS.  After the cycle completely reversed itself-- Justine dominating for a set and a half, it looked like classic WTA... break break break break, crazy tiebreak, fin.  

I'm just still not buying it.  Maybe it seemed especially tortuous because it was 4:30 in the morning, but Kim's mental collapse (you're up a set and two breaks and you have to go to a third set tiebreak to win it?) and Justine's technical inconsistencies (you're up a break in the third against an opponent who's leaking her brain out her ears, and you lose?) made it really hard to watch.  The main thing this match seemed to prove was that Justine is still between Kim's ears; useful for playing Kim, but not so handy for playing Serena.

For my money, I was way more impressed with The Other Belgian in the Auckland final.  Way to go, Yanina.

"Yes we can!"

A fantastic posting by Peter Bodo today analyzing the now-forgotten amuse bouche that prefaced the entree now known as the GMOAT men's final.  I disagree with his assertion that the women's final was the "highest level of women's tennis".  Highest level that we've seen in a while, yes.  But some of those Graf/Vicario, Graf/Seles matches of old had some ridiculous shotmaking and on top of that, they were entertaining.  For me, the women's final was a high level and it was impressive.  But it wasn't entertaining.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: Serena choked.

But the analysis and comparison between the Williamses' serving and the Rafa/Raja's serving was really interesting:

For that reason, a serve statistic unearthed via my correspondence with Tribe member who challenged my analysis of the match might be telling: Serena Williams fastest serve was 121 mph, her average first serve clocked 109, and her average second serve was 87 mph. Venus's fastest serve was a 127 thunderbolt, she averaged 111 on her first serve, and hit her second at an average of 92.

Now let's dare compare that to the men. In the final, Roger Federer's fastest serve was 129, and he averaged 117 on his first deliveries. His average second-serve traveled at 100 mph. That was slightly better than Rafael Nadal (who, in case you hadn't heard, won that match), whose fastest first serve was 120, while his first-serve average was 112 and his average second clocked 93. The takeaway: Venus Williams topped Nadal by a whopping 7 mph in the "fastest" department, and she trailed him by a single mile per hour in the other two critical averages. Granted, Nadal is a spinmeister, which costs him mph numbers. Still, the statistics are a tribute to Venus - and they set a new benchmark for the women's game. To borrow a phrase from Barack Obama (who appears to have stolen it from that other great statesman, Bob the Builder): Yes, we can!

I'll be honest, I didn't realize the sisters Williams were serving THAT hard while watching the match but clearly the empirical evidence proves otherwise.  Very impressive stuff.

Anyway, check out the article.  It's a good read and great food for thought.