Australian Open '13 Point by Point Coverage

[acre]

Wait, what? What is VikaGate? I don't see much tennis news, I'm a babe in the wilderness here, help me out, please.

[tikigirl]

I officially can't stand Azarenka. Oh, wait... Fuck, I hated that match, but I think the future holds great things for Stephens. At any rate, I'll be rooting for Li Na in the final.

I missed tons of tennis in my travel, but I did manage to sneak in a drink (Irish coffee) with oops (tea) in Chicago yesterday. Where it was below zero wind chill. Color me happy to be back in southern NM, where the weather is much more tolerable, as in mid-70s tomorrow!

Pulling for Feds and Ferrer (surprise, surprise).

[skyz]

Vika bascially had a panic attack and called the trainer and took 10 minutes for an injury timeout. She admitted that she was anxious and had time to calm down. Not fair and not right. I know panic attacks can be serious, but this is tennis. You deal. People are pissed.

[acre]

That sounds valid, and I'm beginning to see inklings of it on the web. When I say I watch on mute I mean it, and I just basically tune out when there is a break in the action. Pick up my book, ignore. Bad tennis fan, bad fan, whoopsie. But yeah I agree that panic attacks are real, and seriously disabling, but in a sport like tennis it's just too fucking bad. It's like rolling an ankle - it's awful and it's not your fault(ask Tommy Haas), but if you can't play, you can't play and then you lose.

[skyz]

Now Vika says that she needed her rib unlocked and that she's never questioned anyone else's medical time out's before.

[acre]

so, the men? Djok is easing is way on as we knew he would. Easy-peasy. I just assume Andy is gonna whip Fed's ass. I don't like it, and it could be close, Fed could win, but I doubt it. Andy-Djok final? I have no idea. They are both excellent, both in their prime, both flush with success, I could totally see both winning in 3 and 5. Have to watch to know. Hmm, actually if I had to put money on it, it would absolutely and always be on Djok. We'll see, things could change in the next year(this weekend), but until they do, I like Djok. I love his game, Andy's is nice, but I love Djok's.

Yeah, as a known total Fed worshipper I am counting him out. I'd love to be wrong, but it's been 10 years. He is the GOAT. Even the GOAT ages, Still awesome and amazing, but just not usually enough to get to a Slam semi, final, and champ. Djok is #1 as he should be and I think soon Andy will be #2. Fed won't go easily or willingly, but he will go, it's only a matter of time.

[falafaclese]

Jan 24, 2013 5:24:17 GMT skyz said:

It's easier when your opponent is injured, Sloane. Serena's ankle is swollen like a softball. Doubles really fucked her up. .

I think she was kidding.

[skyz]

I know she was joking, fala. I was feeling a bit cranky when I wrote that. Sloane could have easily folded mentally in the match against Serena and she didn't Not an easy thing to hold your nerves as she did.

[lt]

Hoo boy. The press sure didn't throw softballs Vika's way after the match. I did watch the match (and I guess my decision to stay up for the women and skip the Djoker/Ferrer match was a good one) and she was injured. I think two things happened but first, a caveat, I like Vika so I'm biased: 1) Vika has an unfortunate desire to always be quirky in her on court interviews so she went with the jokey answer about the panic attack and it backfired bigtime and 2) she does not like to show her opponent her weakness--she waits until she actually collapses--so she never called for the trainer. The flip side to those arguments is that she legitimately seemed to think having a panic attack was worthy of an injury timeout but by the time she got to her press conference (after her team talked to her I would assume) she was backing away from her story. It would have been better to stick with her original story at that point. Meanwhile, do we get to hear from the trainer? If he can say what the problem was when he did the assessment and told her to go inside that might be helpful.

Chris E. and Pam were not a good twosome to be the ones in the booth during that whole thing--they were so judgmental after the fact but before it all went down they were talking about how obvious it was that Vika was injured and that Sloane should have been paying more attention to her opponent and take advantage of it. When Vika came out after the timeout they were saying that Sloane should have been up and hitting serves during the wait. But after Vika said "panic attack" that gruesome twosome immediately forgot everything about how it had been so obvious that Vika was injured and now it was all Vika=gamesmanship and poor, poor Sloane.

I like Sloane but I didn't want her to win this match because the final would have been a fiasco--unless Li Na ended up injured as well. Sloane held serve 3 times the entire match. That would not have held up in the final.

[mooncreek]

What happened in the semis doesn't really change my opinion of Vika - and I don't mean that positively. Here's the thing: when your timing about injuries is suspect so many times, it had better be obvious that you're injured in a situation like what happened in the semis. She may not retire from matches like Tipsarevic but I see these two in similar fashion.

My suspicion to the panic attack response: she felt an injury, panicked over the injury and its timing due to her history in majors but couldn't quite express that opinion. The on-court interview did sound bad but she just didn't articulate the panic correctly.

All that said, Li Na for the win!

[falafaclese]

Jan 24, 2013 12:10:03 GMT skyz said:

I know she was joking, fala I was feeling a bit cranky when I wrote that. Sloane could have easily folded mentally in the match against Serena and she didn't Not an easy thing to hold your nerves as she did.

I agree. I also agree with the point I think you were making before, which is that it probably would have been over in 2 sets if Serena hadn't gotten hurt.

[tikigirl]

I think I'm going to try to take a nap and watch the men's match tonight. Let's hope I don't live to regret it! Anyone with me?

[harry24]

Hey, tiki -- I'm not sure about tonight. I'm just not feeling too hopeful about Roger's chances.

For those of you who like Azarenka, I remember reading in one of Jon Wertheim's articles that she was considered a real bitch. Do you discount that? Don't care? Does that make her more appealing to you?

[skyz]

Novak did the same thing at the US Open with Murray, took a MTO right before Andy served for the match. Gamesmanship, yeah, but Vika did look injured or rather in distress. And having a locked rib is a real thing, which people on twitter could not believe, so it was bad timing. Did she take the MTO on purpose to mess with Sloane's head? Probably. And it worked. But Sloane hadn't been holding serve all match so she probably didn't need to play mind games. And I can believe that Vika can be a bitch.

I think Roger's going to take this match against Andy. No particular reason other than a feeling. I didn't watch the Tsonga match but I don't know. I want Roger to win. I want to see a final with Roger and Novak.

[roseha]

I think it's hard to say what's going to happen tonight. Roger's had tougher matches than Andy but he's had a way tougher draw. I think he has a chance. That said, I'm not sure about the outcome but will depend on the local news to alert me when I slowly turn it on early/wake up. Afraid I can't stay up tiki and everyone, that's the one time of night I need to be asleep even with my late schedule. Good luck Rog!

ETA: I was intrigued by the mention of Li's commercial's with her husband so I just checked Youtube. I think this one is very cute:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz4mXBeJFOo