You can see the Australian Open a lot of different ways: as a fresh start, a two-week season between seasons, or even, as some of the top players seemed to do Down Under, as the last event of the previous year. However you look at it, the tournament advances 2011 a lot farther down the road, from a results point of view, than it does from a chronological point of view. One of the four big tournaments, one of the four titles that will be remembered forever, is already in the books and February has just begun.
Maybe it’s best to think of Melbourne as a prelude. Now we start 2011 again, with a new set of dynamics, a new momentum, a new set of challengers in place. Let’s take a look at where we are this week compared to mid-January.
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We have a new hot hand on the men’s tour. Novak Djokovic looked sharp coming to Melbourne, in Davis Cup and then at Hopman Cup. But the latter was an exhibition, and Roger Federer, at least to my eyes, looked even better. He’d only lost a couple of matches to close 2010, and he continued that slashing form in Doha in January. He had also beaten Djokovic convincingly in London, in a match that the Serb said he had to fight hard just to get into.
Conditions were vastly different in Melbourne, where the outdoor court was slower and the air was cooler. It used to be that those kinds of changes in conditions didn’t phase Federer; he has twice won the World Tour Final and the Aussie Open back to back. This time Djokovic turned the tables after London and won in straight sets in Melbourne. Federer’s decline from his pinnacle has been slow, and dotted with upticks; judging from his play coming to Australia, you might have thought he was entering an Indian Summer. And he still could be; one match doesn’t mean that the previous five months were useless or a mirage. But, maybe because it left him with no majors at all, or even any final-round appearances in the last 12 months, this was the first time I’ve looked at Federer as a champion who is beginning to fade just a bit. During the last half-year, the king of the Slams has beaten Djokovic everywhere, except at the Slams.
As for the Serb, we’re kind of back where we were three years ago, when he was being crowned, most forcefully by his own mother, the new king. He wasn’t ready then; he’s more ready now. But these were also the conditions that he likes best. We’ll see if, like Federer and Nadal have in the past, Djokovic can transcend surfaces and conditions and maintain his current level. It won’t be easy, for at least two reasons: That level was stratospheric enough to close the tournament with three-set wins over Berdych, Federer, and Murray; and by April we’ll be back in Europe, back on clay, and back in the land of the guy who is still, after all, No. 1 in the world, Rafael Nadal.
On the men’s side, there was a momentum shift from one player to another. On the WTA side, it was a case of one woman coming through to dispel, for the time being, the fog that shrouded the women’s game as the Australian Open began. We went into the tournament calling it the most wide open in memory, and we’ve come out of it looking at a potential banner season for Kim Clijsters, who has won the last two majors, as well the tour championships. She had opportunities to choke in various matches, including the final, but this time she didn’t. This time she grew calmer when she needed to and found ways to slow down any negative momentum rather than speeding it up with her rushed pace of play. Whatever Clijsters’ ranking is on any given week, she’s given the women’s game a definitive player to beat in the absence of Serena Williams.
What other shifts up and down the totem pole did we see? Here are a few thumbnail sketches.
Andy Murray: He appeared to me to be half-hampered by injury, so I’m not going to crush him completely for what was otherwise a dismal performance. I don’t think it spells doom for his chances in finals in the future. One thing, though: Body language. However he was playing, he didn’t give himself a chance the way he carried himself.
Caroline Wozniacki: She was one shot away from the final, but as soon as her bigger-hitting opponent found her range, Wozniacki lost control of the match. She does many things well, but since the ascent of the Williams sisters, it’s the big hitters who have monopolized the majors.
Rafael Nadal: From a glass-half-full point of view, if he hadn’t hurt himself, he had a great shot at winning the tournament. As well as Djokovic was playing, he was hardly going to be the favorite against Nadal in a Grand Slam final, when the Rafa Slam was on the line. Nadal’s injury isn’t as serious as last year’s knee problem appeared to be, either. Whatever happens in the next couple of months, he’ll always have Monte Carlo. In other words, Nadal is in the same place as he always is. Learn to dominate on one surface, kids; they can never take that away from you.
Li Na: She was loose, she was funny, she hit big. Then she caught a glimpse of the finish line over the next hill and wasn’t quite as loose anymore. We’ll see if any of her momentum follows her to Indian Wells this year. It’s kind of a long time to keep it going.
Berankis, Dimitrov, Raonic, Dolgopolov, Tomic: The first two may have gone away meekly, but the ATP has a new group of players to watch. I liked them all, for different reasons. We talk about cookie-cutter tennis; these guys don’t play it.
Vera Zvonareva: She’s developing into a litmus test for Slam winners. Can you hit harder than her? You’ll probably win the whole thing.
Svetlana Kuznetsova: She had me believing again. And to her credit she did play her heart and lungs out against Schiavone. But she also couldn’t keep the ball in the court when she needed to. Which leaves Sveta about where she always is, good enough to be disappointing.
Andy Roddick: This appeared to be a crossroads moment for Roddick. He plays safely enough to let early-round opponents self-destruct, but that stops working around the end of the first week. Stan Wawrinka looked liked a world-beater against him, which we quickly found out was a mirage. Roddick and his coach, Larry Stefanki, both like the grind, so change will be hard.
Justine Henin: We’ll never see the best stroke of her generation, her backhand, again. From a practical perspective, this must make Clijsters feel a little better, and give everyone more hope at Roland Garros.
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Talking Rotterdam tomorrow.