tennis gut

Australian Open 2016 – Men Novak Djokovic has been all but invincible, with only 5 losses in the last year.  He’s won the Australian title five times and just thrashed one of his biggest rivals, Rafael Nadal, 6-1 6-2 last week.  His current form is devastating and when he’s on, no one else comes close.  He said his win last week was his best ever, so it’s possible we haven’t even seen peak Nole.  What a thought... On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine 2016 could be even better than last year’s 11 titles, including three slams and six 1000 events.  Surely he’s going to have a letdown?  I’m not holding my breath.  He already has the most Australian Open titles in the Open era, and if he wins title #6 in Melbourne it will tie him with Roy Emerson for most all time. Australian Titles 6 – Emerson 5 – Djokovic 4 – Crawford, Rosewall, Agassi, Federer 3 – J Anderson, Laver, Quist, Wilander Djokovic’s particular blend of speed, flexibi...

Australian Open 2016 – Women Serena Williams last played in the semi-finals of the US Open in early September.  That’s over four months without an official match.  She seems peerless in this era, far outdistancing her nearest competition in head-to-head contests, but she will not be match tough coming into this Australian Open.  Will rust make an upset likely? If Serena Williams plays well, she should be the heavy favourite.  She should beat everyone else in the draw.  But sometimes she simply does not.  She may be the only one who can beat herself – by inconsistent play and not finding her groove.  But how to predict this?  I would say the odds are slightly higher than normal that she will succumb to an upset, merely because of the lack of recent match play.  But she is still the favourite.  She has a record 6 Open era titles, second on the all time list. Australian Titles 11 – Court 6 – SWilliams, WynneBolton 5 – Ac...

Novak Djokovic bolted out of the gate, winning the Australian Open in January and the 1000-double at Indian Wells and Miami in March.  He followed it up with another two 1000’s, in Monte Carlo and Rome, but skipped Madrid which was won, unexpectedly, by Andy Murray over Rafael Nadal on clay.   The surprises continued when Stan Wawrinka denied Nole the grand slam by beating him in the French final, after Novak handed Nadal only his second ever loss at Roland Garros, in the quarterfinals.  At Wimbledon, Djokovic held off Roger Federer in the final for the second straight year.  Andy Murray gave Novak his fourth loss of the year, in the Canadian final, the first loss for Nole at the 1000 level all year.  A week later Federer repeated the feat in Cincinnati.  But Djokovic prevailed when it really counted, in the US Open final, again over Federer. Djokovic continued his amazing run in China picking up titles at the 500 event in Beijing and the 1...

2015 WTA Yearend and Predictions for 2016 The grand slam... the ultimate achievement in tennis... was so close this year.  Serena Williams was within two wins of the monumental feat, before Roberta Vinci derailed her in the US Open semis.  Serena did not play after that loss, but she had still amassed a 53-3 match win record for the year:  her losses coming to Petra Kvitova, Belinda Bencic, and Vinci.  Surprisingly, this amounted to only two titles outside of the three slams she won.  But she also retired from three tournaments.  Her total of 5 titles for the year seems low for such a dominant #1.  But her total of 21 slam singles titles is third on the all time list. Slam Singles Titles 24 – Margaret Court 22 – Steffi Graf 21 – Serena Williams 20 – Helen Wills* 18 – Chris Evert 18 – Martina Navratilova *includes 1924 Olympics which replaced Fre Chps that year The sense of deflation after Serena’s US Open loss was huge. ...