By the time this is posted, the semifinals for the men and women will be set in the Australian Open. As I write this, half of each already are. On the men's side, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have already punched their ticket, and in all likelihood, they will be joined by Andy Murray and Milos Raonic tonight.
It's difficult to explain just how top-heavy the men's game is. In the last 10 years — that's 40 grand slam events — Djokovic, Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Stan Wawrinka have won all but two.
You might've known that. What you probably didn't know is the top-heaviness extends even further. This year saw Tomas Berdych make the Australian Open quarterfinal for the sixth straight year, and yet, thanks to the big five, hasn't made one final. Except for the odd grand slam final or (in one lone case) championship, it's a similar story for David Ferrer, Kei Nishikori, Marin Cilic, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. So it's not just the same grand slam champions every year, but the same finalists, semifinalists, quarterfinalists.
Is that the case this year? In brief, yes. Of the big five, three made the quarterfinals, and they were joined by Ferrer and Nishikori. The only ones who came up short were Wawrinka and Nadal. Had they won out, they'd be playing each other in the quarterfinals. Instead, that quarterfinal will be Raonic, and perhaps the only true underdog in the last eight, Gael Monfils.
Monfils is the 23rd-seed and has battled injuries for much of the last couple of years. He also draws the ire of tennis purists for going for low percentage circus shots and a perhaps-undeserved reputation of unseriousness. He is taking on 13th-seed Milos Raonic, who is absolutely red hot. Not only did Raonic knock out Wawrinka in the fourth round, but earlier this month he defeated Federer for the Brisbane title. It wouldn't be surprising to see him get past not only Monfils, but (assuming he beats Ferrer) Murray in the semifinal.
Still, it's hard to bet against Djokovic to take the title. As the estimable folks of the Mind the Racket podcast pointed out, Djokovic tends to have one wonky, distracted match per grand slam, and boy howdy, did he have in the fourth round against Gilles Simon. In that match, he committed a jaw-dropping 100 unforced errors in a tough five-set win (to paraphrase Mind the Racket again, Djokovic seemed to be pridefully attacking Simon's strengths instead of his weaknesses, needlessly prolonging the match). Having gotten that out of his system, Djokovic straight-setted Nishikori in the quarterfinals and I'm betting against him dropping a set the rest of the tournament.
On the women's side, which is usually a lot more volatile and unpredictable than the men's, things have gone a little more according to Hoyle than usual. Serena Williams has looked absolutely dominant and I will say straight away I don't see anyone stopping her or coming close. She's one of six players seeded in top 14 to make the quarterfinals. The exceptions are unseeded Johanna Konta, and the feel-good story of the Australian Open, Zhang Shuai.
Zhang wasn't simply unseeded for this tournament, she was a qualifier. But she wasn't even supposed to come out of qualifying, seeded No. 18 in qualifiers (16 players qualify). It gets better: she broke Virginie Razzano in the final round of qualifying when Razzano was serving for the match. It gets better still: despite being ranked as high as 30th back in July 2014, Zhang had never won a single grand slam main draw match, in 15 tries, before this Australian Open. She was fixing to retire and decided to make the Australian Open one last "what the hell, let's see what I can do" shot.
She beat 15th-seed Madison Keys and 2nd-seed Simona Halep to get this far, and faces unseeded Konta in her quarterfinal. She's on the opposite side of the draw than Williams, and with no one in the top six in her way before then, a trip all the way to the finals is not out of the question.
Leave a Comment