T-minus 7 hours and counting. . . that’s how long it is before the means final of the Australian Open between Roger Federer and Marcos Baghdatis begins. If you’ve got a thirst for last-minute punditry, check out Brad Gilbert's analysis of the match-up in The Age.
A hat-tip to Gilbert for doing fantastic work here in Melbourne. Brad isn’t the most beloved figure in tennis (some Europeans recoil in horror at the very mention of his name). A lot of people find him grating and vulgar; there’s no question that with his perpetual stubble, square-jaw, fondness for cliché and American sports jargon, and absolute mastery of baseball and Wall Street minutia, he qualifies as some kind of archetypal, appallingly extroverted and unselfconscious Homo Jocko Americanus.
Don't be fooled. Gilbert's knowledge of the game is breathtaking; he's the game's mad professor, TennisWorld's idiot savant. It's easy to forget that because he's so well-known, and gets more than a fair share of exposure.
Brad’s also very fair. It’s hard to imagine two people more dissimilar, in a hundred different ways, than Gilbert and Amelie Mauresmo, thus you wouldn’t really have expected Brad to pick Mauresmo to win the title yesterday – not against Justine H2, renowned (until today) as one of the fiercest competitors in the game.
But that’s exactly what Brad did. It’s all academic now, but read his spot-on Mauresmo-friendly preview here if you don’t believe me.
Isn't it great when people surprise you?