Thoughts on Australia 2015

After two weeks of disrupted sleep patterns and lots of coffee I am now ready to table my thoughts on what was The Australian Open 2015.

The hardest loss to watch – Ana Ivanovic’s meltdown in the first round. Anyone who has ever played a competitive tennis match knows exactly how she felt during that match. May it never happen to another player ever again.

The weather – this year is a year that the weather had absolutely no effect on the tournament’s results. In previous years the heat of the Australian summer often took its toll on players. We got to witness athletes cramping and hallucinating in the heat, great television drama but so unfair to the players.
The new roof on the revamped Margaret Court Arena made a total of three stadiums capable of play during inclement weather. But the inclement weather only made a brief inconsequential appearance.

Breakout player – Without any question Madison Keys broke out from the pack this tournament. The last two games of her match with Serena showed what Madison is capable of and I hope all the players of the WTA took notice. As Madison gains more confidence in her abilities her ranking is going to skyrocket.

Fashion – I think tweets and blogs relating to the tennis fashions outnumbered the tweets and blogs about actual matches. Although Serena’s neon yellow dress won lots of accolades, the Adidas purple dress worn by Ana Ivanovic was by far my favourite look of the tournament. Maria’s Nike dress was also a hit in my books but Vika’s Nike neon yellow ensemble was a dud.
As for the men, I still can’t figure out why Under Armour spent all that money on a deal with Andy Murray only to dress him in boring all black plain t shirt and shorts. I just can’t see tennis players all over the world running to the stores for that look.
The Uniqlo outfit sported by Novak was conservative and boring both in colour and style.
Nike had players dressed the colour of the tennis ball and Uniqlo had its key player dressed the colour of the court!

Most disappointing- I really thought that one of the young guns was going to make a huge breakthrough at this tournament. Milos Raonic showed us his ground strokes have greatly improved but his volleys betrayed him in the end. Nick Krygios is on the brink and I am excited to see him play at other tour level events. I think Grigor Dimitrov is steadily improving and his time to win a major is not all that far away.

Best story – Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova winning the ladies doubles was the feel good story of the tournament for me. I love Bethanie’s game and she has fought so hard to come back from numerous injuries. I hope she savours this victory and goes on to many more tattoos and crazy outfits included.

Can’t wait for the rest of the Grand Slams!