Australian Open Super Saturday

Posted by T. A. Niles Jan 22, 2008

While there was great tennis being played Down Under this past weekend… I was getting beat down under. I played some of the worse tournament tennis I’ve played in a long time this past Sunday, finding myself in a situation I don’t remember being in: I couldn’t hit a backhand! From up 3-1, the score became 4-6, 1-6.

When I had lots of time, I could get the ball back in the court most of the time, but when pushed to react for a return of serve or passing shot, or when trying to generate pace, I couldn’t hit the shot that has been my bread and butter since I started playing the game 33 years ago.

It appears that Father Time might have tick-tocked my body into crying “Uncle.” You may not want to hear any of this, but I’m having a midlife tennis crisis here, so give a guy a break! Ok, ok, let’s talk real tennis even if it is old news…

Federer-Tipsarevic was seismic, Baghdatis-Hewitt was epic, Blake-Grosjean was fantastic, Koubek-Mathieu was of proportions titanic, and Kohlschreiber-Roddick was simply sick! It has to hurt to come all the way back from 2-5 as Baghdatis did, only to go home at 4:30am a loser. How about serving 42 aces and still not getting a W? Ouch!

On the women’s side, there wasn’t much to write home about. Petrova’s match was weird! Who would have thought she was going to lose that…and a bagel in the third at that! And Hantuchova might have just gotten over the hump with that clutch win over Kirilenko. We'll see. Game, set, match...