Novak Djokovic cleans up his second Australian Open and final AO thoughts

The Final Report

This is the last Aussie Open report for this year. It has been a fun time for me, sadly I have not been as diligent as I should have been, story of my life wah, wah, before I get onto the final result. Just some random notes.

The doubles is always of interest to me, have to admit though there are a few guys I like that are doubles specialists aka Marc “the real talent” Lopez and Rogier “the Professor” Wassen. It’s always funny when the singles players play doubles, mainly it’s for the extra cash at a Slam and a bit of training as well. It’s better when they win a couple of rounds, the most hilarious result of the AO was David Marrero and Ramirez-Hidalgo making the 3rd round taking out the team of Dlouhy/Hanley who hadn’t lost in their 2 previous tournaments.

Naturally the best example of the above is when Lucho Horna and Pablo Cuevas won Roland Garros, they still don’t know how they did it. The random pairings as well are a good laugh this year. Janne Hajek and Dolgopolov Jr playing the Fog and Lacko, that was some funny stuff there. The Fog is still lacking in self confidence, if it came to strutting he’d be a multi Slam champion.

Novak Djokovic takes his 2nd Slam title and clearly deserved the crown. He definitely divides people which is a good thing, as it shows he makes an impact. Hopefully he has got rid of the faking of injuries out of his system, he could almost get a role in the WWE with that form. During the tournament the last 3 matches taking out Berdych, Federer and Murray without losing a set, just showed how good Ivan Dodig was for getting that set against Nole.

The first 8 games in the 1st were tight, though Djokovic had chances to break in Murray’s serve early on. The huge 39 stroke rally where Djokovic was defending so well and ended up winning the point with a backhand down the line winner, from there he was able to get the 1st set.

From there he was able to impose his game on Murray for the rest of the match, who once again was too passive in a Slam final. The funny phase of all the breaks of serve towards the end of the 2nd set and through the 3rd set, it wasn’t enough for Muray to gain any momentum to get Djokovic out of the comfort zone. Naturally, it’s not Murray’s game to brainless ball bash his way through a match, but he wasn’t able to seize the moment in the final.

It will be interesting to see how they react a few months down the line, as now Djokovic can now get on the sauce and party hard for a while. It’s great for Marian Vajda who has done so well with Djokovic, took him when he was ranked in the 80s to where he is now. A good guy and a smart coach who doesn’t need the profile to be as big or higher than his player.

Murray, well he has Indian Wells/Miami, then a training block called the clay season. He is not as bad as Roddick during this season, so I won’t call him the tourist. In reality he can use the surface for fitness work, so he can be prepared for more pression when it comes to the British press, who are desperate for a Slam winner. He can definitely win a Slam, just a question of mentality on the big day, has to find the right balance and not be passive the whole time.

Yes, I apologise for not being the best when it comes to updating this site. I had an excellent time at the Aus Open and while there weren’t so many classic matches this year, at least it was not a Fedal final thankfully their matches are tedious to the extreme for the most part. Some youngsters like Dolgopolov Jr with the very quirky game, Raonic, even Bernando Tomic showed some good signs. Berdman played well until he was steamrolled by Djokovic. The outside courts are where the action is, great to see Blaz Kavcic fight so hard, qualify and push a top 10 player to 5 sets.

Not sure how many people will read this part, but I am going to thank them anyway. They all helped to me having a good time and this is in no order. Of course, I forgot some people, but I still love them, no this does not mean Clement, Roddick or Robredo.

- Joel : Great to meet you and hanging with you for 2 weeks was great, too bad you Americans don’t actually get proper leave.
- Sammy : The results weren’t too bad for us this time around, still remember the day we met too funny.
- Peta : Lovely lady, great heart and loves her pintxos. Too bad about her ridiculous love of Zlatan, that Ian Thorpe lookalike.
- Jo : The legendary Dutchman, smart, down to earth and always a pleasure to hang with.
- James : Doing a great job mate, never long enough to hang out and no Danish will never be sexy.
- Rosie : No, it’s not the English one. It’s a Queenslander who was quite bubbly and probably practices the Petkovic dance in secret. No, I don’t know what time Berankis is training.
- Kristen : Glad you made it down, didn’t see too much of you, which sucked but something is better than nothing.
- Jimbo : Just for being himself.

Blaz and Voinea, they are a great combo. Voinea with the smoke and the shoes incident and Kavcic with his fighting spirit trying to make the most of his talent, which I appreciate. Hope they stick together for a while, there is something about having a long term coach.

The transport people were hilarious and great quality, and also to the people whose house I stayed at this year. They were great people and also helped meeting a fellow football fanatic made things easier hehe.

Next destination less exotic and nothing wrong with the Challenger world in Burnie, except the shitty bus ride hehe.