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By Chris Oddo | Thursday February 4, 2016



A rundown of surprises and disappointments from this year's happy slam...

Surprise: Milos Raonic is a Rising Force

It ended in bitter disappointment, but Milos Raonic’s run to the Australian Open semifinals was a giant success. At Melbourne, mighty Milos introduced a next-level net game, a commitment to aggressiveness and an improved return mind-set. Couple that with the blazing serve and forehand we already knew the maple leaf missile possessed, and we have a true threat to big four hegemony. Yes, Raonic will need to keep that big, lumbering frame of his healthy and teach it to survive the long haul at a major, but damn if he didn’t look like a player on the cusp of a Grand Slam breakout in Melbourne.

Read: 5 Reasons Raonic will Make Major Breakthrough

Takeaway: The ATP’s lower ranks are stagnant

It’s a trend that has been underway for about a year now. Women’s tennis just seems to be a more captivating draw to follow at the majors. The matches are exciting. The talent pool is deep and full of earnest, hungry talent that truly believes their time is coming. Case in point: Johanna Konta, Daria Gavrilova, Zhang Shuai, Anna-Lena Friedsam, Naomi Osaka, Annika Beck. All players to watch, and ones that thrilled at Melbourne. There are more: Daria Kasatkina, Margarita Gasparyan. Peel back the layer of rising stars to find—presto—more rising stars. It just feels like there is so much more hope on the women’s side right now. There’s an air of “anything can happen,” while on the men’s side there are numerous talents that seem to be temporarily stultified by the phenom known as Novak Djokovic. It’s nothing against Djokovic here. It was brilliant to watch him at the top of his game. But from this vantage point it feels like there is a real stagnancy in the lower ranks of the ATP Tour right now. Once-promising names like Dolgopolov, Paire, Dimitrov, Cilic and Goffin all seem to be spinning their wheels. Chardy? Tomic? Sock? All possess significant talents, but will they ever get to elite? There are young guns on the way, and by the time they get here the big four will be old, grayed and in their rocking chairs. In the meantime, don’t overdo it on the popcorn…

Disappointment: Rafael Nadal

It would have been very nice to see Nadal build some momentum in Melbourne. Maybe a run to the quarters or semis and another Top-10 win at a major. We know Novak is a bit out of his league at the moment, but in losing in the first-round to Fernando Verdasco Nadal lost a chance to build some major momentum for 2016, and he likely opened the gates for more self-doubt to creep in. He needs every bit of belief that he can get right now, but it’s proving hard to come by.

Read: Verdasco Gets His Revenge over Nadal Seven Years Later


Disappointment: Simona Halep and Garbine Muguruza

Whether by injuries, nerves or shoddy play, Halep and Muguruza are not doing themselves any favors by falling behind in the Race to Singapore. Halep has her health issues, and she elected to play through pain to see what she could make of things. The result? A bitterly disappointing loss to China’s Zhang Shuai. Muguruza claimed to have a clean bill of health but still tossed in a mystifyingly flat performance in losing to Barbora Strycova in the third round at Melbourne. Both players have come a long way to prove their mettle over the last 24 months, which is why their inability to make an impression at the year’s first major was a huge disappointment.

Surprise: Gilles Simon’s performance against Novak Djokovic

Simon played to win, and even though he fell short in five to the world No. 1 in an exciting round-of-16 tussle, he displayed a lot of courage and conviction in pushing the Serb to the brink. Simon has won his share of big matches over the years, and though he’s not the most powerful player he proved on this day that he has as much heart—in some cases more—than anybody on the ATP Tour.

Read: Djokovic Survives Battle of Wills with Simon

Takeaway: Djokovic is so primed to rule Roland Garros

The focus and fire that Novak Djokovic unleashed on three of the top players in the men’s game from the quarterfinals shows just how far the Serb has come in terms of managing his tennis at the majors. Now that he’s become one of the best servers in the game, he’s able to control matches much more easily. There’s a certain wisdom that Djokovic is carrying now, and to watch him evolve as a competitor and tactician is truly mind-blowing—and scary. Djokovic has always had one of the biggest compete levels on the tour, but now as he has become a better tactician and a more experienced player, he’s reached untouchable status. It’s going to take a lot for someone to take a set off of Djokovic in Paris—let alone defeat him—if he keeps this level of motivation and intensity.

Surprise: Angelique Kerber Takes the Title

She was tabbed as one of the five best players to have never reached a major final, but man oh man what Angelique Kerber did in Melbourne was off the charts and crazy impressive. To defeat Serena Williams in the third set in a major final (something that had never been done before)—that takes heart and courage and confidence, not to mention a pair of FAST LEGS. But somehow, Kerber saw the dream to fruition and she’ll ride that magic carpet into the meat of the tennis season. Hopefully she’ll be able to use it as inspiration and build on it. We’ve seen too many players take a giant step back after their breakthroughs lately (think Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Eugenie Bouchard, and even Garbine Muguruza to an extent).

Disappointment: Serena’s first set in the final

Slow starts have become a Williams’ trademark in the last two Grand Slam seasons, but this slow start may have topped them all. When you come out with a chance to make tennis history, and you simply can’t find the court often enough, even with routine sitters, there can be ramifications. There have been days when Serena has been able to respond to similar “walkabouts” and still storm back to victory, but Angelique Kerber was too determined of an athlete last Saturday in Melbourne, and she made Serena pay for what was an egregiously error-filled first set in the final. Williams had 23 unforced errors against just three for Kerber in that set (she had 12 winners, making her a minus-11; Kerber was a plus-1). Patrick Mouratoglou gets tons of credit for Serena’s success of late, but for whatever reason, he didn’t have her ready to play the type of tennis she needed to on this day.

Takeaway: Vika just needs to keep pluggin’

There was so much hype about a potential Victoria Azarenka vs. Serena Williams final in Melbourne. Many believed that Azarenka was the only player with a shot to take out the 21-time major champion. It did look like Azarenka, who was rolling in the early rounds, did have a shot. But she fell to Angelique Kerber in the quarters, and now it’s back to the drawing board. Just a little lesson about how meaningless numbers can prove to be: Azarenka was by far the hottest player in the draw; At one point in Melbourne she had lost just 11 games in four matches heading into her quarterfinal with Kerber and owned a 6-0 head-to-head vs. Kerber that included a victory just weeks ago in the Brisbane final.

And, she lost. Sometimes the trend just isn’t your friend. But the good news for Azarenka is that she’s clearly on the right path. Her time to win majors will come again if she stays the course and keeps evolving as a player and a person.

Question: Would a Raonic-Djokovic final have been better?

My colleague Richard Pagliaro wondered this to me in an email the other day. Would the Australian Open men’s singles final have been better if Milos Raonic stayed healthy in his semifinal and advanced past Andy Murray? It didn’t happen and the Scot earned his spot in the final with fierce grit and determination, but what if it was Raonic in the final instead of Muzza? Raonic likely would have come in with more buoyancy and belief. Murray, ragged and flummoxed from a trying week, seemed to have very little steam to offer up against Djokovic in the final. It’s understandable, given the circumstances of Murray’s tournament (father-in-law hospitalized, wife at home expecting) and Nole’s dominant form. It’s a tough matchup for Murray, as he plays the same style as Djokovic and nobody in the world seems to be able to challenge the Serb in that type of game right now. Against Raonic, Djokovic would have been forced to play a more defensive and reactionary game. It might have made for a more compelling—Ah, what are we thinking? Novak would have crushed him like he crushes everybody these days.


 

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