Australian Open 2009

[Richard]

It's almost that time of the year, for the Australian Open of Tennis in Melbourne, the first Grand Slam event of the year and one of the sporting highlights of the year for myself.

It will be commencing on the 19th of January and closing on the 1st of February and will be played on outdoor hard courts.

For the Tennis fans of WZ, what are your thoughts about the competition lately? Who do you think has improved and has a better shot than last year? Who could win it? After being defeated by Andy Murray recently, what do you think about Rafael Nadal and do you think he will be able to bounce back?

The main champions of last year are as follows:

Men's Singles: Novak Djokovic
Men's Doubles: Jonathan Erlich / Andy Ram
Women's Singles: Maria Sharapova
Women's Doubles: Alona Bondarenko / Kateryna Bondarenko
Mixed Doubles: Tiantian Sun / Nenad Zimonjic

So, if there are any other Tennis followers on here, I would like to discuss the Australian Open here.

 

[Khalifa]

Improved since lsat year. i would have to say gonzales ( if that is how you spell it) after that Australian open match with federer ( again i forgot) he was a bit if-ish but the last part of last year like from October on he was doing great. he is my wildcard to win it. but i think overall he will come 6th. Anyways Nadal will not win. not because he lost to Murray but because i just think it isn't his time. But eveyr tennis player has some off games so Nadal will bounce back for a final 2 possy. Andy Rodick as a chance but he is a bit older and his serve is the only good part about his game. anyways the winner of the australian ope 2008 will be.

Mens: Djokovic
Women: S. Williams or V. Williams

 

[Italian MVP]

Will since Federer is my favourite player, I obviously want him to win. But im not sure, Nadal seems to be a bit down lately, and there are a lot of other players that have a shot this year. Novak Djokovic is the defending champion but I doubt he will win it two years in a row. Should be a great tournament on Australian soil as always, but im hoping and I think Federer will again reign supreme in Australia!

 

[AFC1986]

I think Murray will win as he was awesome in the second half of 2008 and has hit the ground running in 2009 beating Federer and Nadal on route to winning the World Tennis Championship

 

[Tim]

I live in Melbourne, so hoping to go to this. Anyway, this one is open to a number of different players to win it. Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Murray. Each have different styles, and each could easily win it. But each of them could easily get knocked out before the finals as well. I'm predicting that we'll have a Federer/Nadal match in the finals and Nadal will beat Federer in a close game, just like at Wimbledon.

 

[Richard]

I don't want Nadal to win though. What can I say? I mark for Federer.

I'm hoping this year is better for Federer than last year and I think he has a good chance at winning this. Who I think will win and who I want to win are completely different things and I don't think Djokovic will win it again, neither will Murray, not with Nadal, Federer and Djokovic looming in the competition, but he has also beaten them before so I'm not sure, but I'd place my money on Federer taking this, with Nadal coming in second.

Although, if you wanted a truely great Australian Open moment, why not have Lleyton Hewitt win? I'm not saying he will, but what a moment that would be. I like him aswell and he is in a pretty decent form, so I think he might get a bit fair in the comp, but more than likely not past round 4 maybe. Just watching his match now with Tipserovic in Sydney and he is coming back strong.

 

[Downward Spiral]

This Open interests me because it's the first I can remember for a while where there's been no clear favourite or two. This is anyone's to win, even for the women. All the big players of the last few years aren't really going the greatest at the moment. Djokovic was knocked out first round in the Brisbane International, Federer lost as many games in the last year as he probably has in the 3 years before that. Nadal was recently beaten, and Tsonga's not exactly as dominating as he was this time last year.

I think it's going to be someone like Stepanek who goes all the way in this tournament. Someone we don't expect to do well.

As far as Australian tennis players go...well, the best we can hope for is to have at least one make it to the second round. Hewitt's really the only hope to do anything, but it's hard to get behind him seeing as he's quite the wanker. Dellacqua has done nothing of note since last year's Open. Sam Stosur might be a chance, seeing as she took Serena Williams to 3 sets and had 3 match points against her (albeit due to some controversy), but I wouldn't look too much into that.

Don't usually follow tennis, but around this time of year I tune in to this event. Should be one of the more interesting Australian Opens.

 

[Richard]

Downward Spiral is right. The last few years, there has been one and only one answer, Roger Federer. Since Rafael Nadal dethroned him, the winners of tennis tournaments has been not as predictable as say, since 2004 when Roger Federer became number 1.

Although, Roger Federer looked very impressive at Kooyong during the exhibition tournament there, from what I remember last year, he looked much better this year, more confident and over all much better because he did have a sickness last year or something like that, it wouldn't suprise me if Roger Federer did win this Australian Open. I don't want Rafael Nadal to win, I just don't like him for some reason, I'd like to see Roger Federer to have a clean sweep this year of Grand Slams and take all 4 major titles.

On Lleyton Hewitt, his first round match up is against Fernando Gonzalez, so that will be interesting, to say the least.

Bernard Tomic won his first round match just then and the Aus Open website live scoreboard tells me that Novac Djokovic's match against Stoppini is this..

Stoppini 2 | 3 | 4
Djokovic 6 | 6 | 1

Which, isn't suprising.

 

[Khalifa]

It's been intresting. ALl the Aussies are out now ( if Chris Guccioni lost). Which is quite disappointing to say the least. No one has standed out yet. Djokovic hasn't played spectactular. Nadal is probably the favourite. Because he is having a good run out there. Federa has been playing good as well. But he isn;t at his old form were he just dominated eveyr one until the semi's.

The girls is quite intresting as well. Because no one is doing anything. Like there is hardly any one standing out. Safina is doing shit and the Williams ins't at her best either. Just to tough to tell. This is the closest Aussie Open he have had for awhile.

 

[Richard]

If I'm correct, Australia's only chance at an Australian picking up anything is Jelena Dokic? Although I don't know how well she'll be able to perform in her next match up after rolling her ankle or something, not quite sure what happened because I missed it, although at the way she's going, she could make the semi's, maybe the finals is a bit of a stretch but I don't think she'd get the winners trophy.

Now that I think it's down to the final 8, consisting of (According to the official Australian Open website) :

Nadal vs Simon

Verdasco vs Tsonga

Roddick vs Djokovic

DelPotro vs Federer

I think that Nadal will win his match and then will beat Tsonga to advance into the finals and Djokovic will beat Roddick and will then lose to Federer who seems to be performing much better than last year and Federer will win.