Hello, and welcome to the first post of The Perfect Set. Can you welcome someone to a blog post? Not sure, but I just did. I thought I’d introduce the blog and myself before sharing my (quickly outdating) thoughts on the Australian Open.

Nevermind, I only have so much time on my break and I’ll jump straight into the main course.

The Australian Open has in recent years become popularly known as the Slam that produces the surprise finalist. Though now I suppose we can re-brand it as the Slam that produces the surprising semi-finalist. On the other hand, doesn’t every Slam produce a surprise semi-finalist almost every time?

Who would have thought David Ferrer would be the bundle of surprise this year. Most of us thought he had peaked a couple years ago, and was inevitably on his way down. And much as his work ethic is to be admired, does anyone really root for him to win?

He that’s of little charisma (though his victory speech in Auckland was endearing) who plays a steady, monotonous game that’s never quite good enough to topple the big boys. It’s easier to root for a Nalbandian or Baghdatis, because you always get the sense that they can raise their games in big matches.

I barely got to see the Australian Open – which happens to be my favourite Slam – this year. I just moved to a different country and amidst the trouble of adjusting to a new job, apartment and so forth, getting a satellite dish seems to be the toughest challenge here.

Anyway, I got to see glimpses here and there, at cafes and cyberellas and then unwittingly scheduled a long flight exactly at the same time as the men’s final. What’s that expression kids use these days? FML?

The only consolation was that it wasn’t Federer against Nadal. That comfort was much needed after I had spent 3 and a half hours in a cyber cafe refreshing my stream every two minutes hoping I’d get to see the Nalbandian-Hewitt match, but in vain. I probably saw 10 points and would have left had it not been for the running commentary at Tennis Warehouse.

So in the absence of any real coverage and being consumed by work, I resorted to denial that the event was even taking place. So despite being deprived of tennis, I chose to sleep rather than watch the Murray-Ferrer semi final when I actually had access to a television set on a comfortable couch (but I couldn’t lie on it because I was staying at someone’s house where it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so). I did catch some of the match though.

And boy was I surprised to see Ferrer going toe to toe with Murray in a Slam semi. I knew he wasn’t going to win – years of being tossed around by the top guys like a discarded 50 Cent disc has to hamper your progress in a Slam semifinal.

Regardless, Ferrer played an outstanding match and the truth is, Murray is just a better player.

But kudos to Ferrer. Did anyone get more out of their game at this Australian Open than David Ferrer? I thought Lleyton Hewitt played extremely well to hang around against an opponent who does everything better than him besides move on the court.

I missed out 98% of the Slam so I can’t say for sure but obviously Djokovic did not do too bad.But apart from the relative surprise of seeing Djokovic storm through the draw, I think most would agree that he just played up to a potential we knew he had in him.

On the other hand, Ferrer outdid himself. And I wonder if his last match of 2010 had something to do with the fire in his belly this January. I wrote about his performance at the World Tour Finals briefly here.

(http://bleacherreport.com/articles/530811-atp-world-tour-finals-summing-up-the-round-robin-pt-2) (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/530783-atp-world-tour-finals-2010-summing-up-the-round-robin-pt-1)

I wrote what I thought he needed to do, and based on the half an hour or so of visual evidence, I think he can attribute his success to a more aggressive game plan. I liked how he was aggressively driving that low short ball into the corners instead of hitting relatively loopy shots almost into the corners.

I said after the WTF that Ferrer wasn’t a Roddick in terms of his motivation and he wouldn’t make the adjustment to take his game to the next level. But of course, the exact opposite happened to be true.

While Roddick’s efforts to make improvements to his game are commendable, I think his fairly successful and fruitful partnership with Stefanki has reached a dead end. Losing to Wawrinka is no shame. But if Roddick really wants to win a Slam he can’t rely on his comfort zone game even against the players against whom he has been previously successful.

And he really needs to make mid-match adjustments. And please, stop with the “He was too good for me today.” Yes of course he was too good for you today. You fed him exactly the sort of balls he likes to tee off on.

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From what I’ve heard Federer actually played well but Djokovic was too good. But what does this loss mean for him? Frustratingly, there is a big gap between the Australian Open and the other Slams. So for someone itching to win Slams, that could be a downer – as we saw with Murray last year.

But Federer’s so level headed that I think he is just looking forward to hitting the Burj, and then peaking at Indian Wells and Miami. But how long will he enjoy the tour stops if he continues to hit the wall at Slams. This is the first time since 2003 that he doesn’t own a major.

We knew it had to happen eventually, but could you have imagined it a year ago? Could Federer? He went from the King of best of 5s to the best of 3 specialist. In 2008-2009 he frequently lost to Djokovic in smaller events only to stamp his authority in the majors. The opposite has been the case in the past few months.

The problem with Federer seems to be the lack of consistency from day to day. Last year he played a perfect match against Soderling only to play an error-strewn match against Djokovic.

I haven’t paid much attention to the tennis media and fans lately, but I’m guessing they have already signed off on his obituary. I think if Federer was a more emotional guy, he would likely plummet. But he’s pretty even keeled so I think he will be alright.

Okay that’s all for now, I have to get going.

Ciao