KEY BISCAYNE '12: Venus, Serena, Azarenka Win!

Venus Williams won the 602nd match of her stellar career by defeating former #1 Ana Ivanovic, 6-7(4) 6-2 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, which she has won 3 times and her sister Serena Williams has won 5 times. Venus is know only the 14th player in WTA history to reach the 600-win landmark, with an overall win-loss record of 602-147.

World #1 Victoria Azarenka staged an(other) epic comeback from 6-1 5-1 down against Dominique Cibulkova when she came back to extend her 2012 winning streak to 26 matches by gutting out the win 1-6 7-6(7) 7-5. Last year, Azarenka had come back to beat Cibulkova despite being down 6-3 3-1 down at this very same tournament!

Serena Williams rocketed a career high 20 aces in this rematch of the 2011 US Open women's final to defeat Samantha Stosur 7-5 6-3 despite being a break down in both sets.

In the quarterfinals, Serena will face former World #1 Caroline Wozniacki , while Venus will face World #5 Agnieska Radwanska and Azarenka will play Marion Bartoli. The last quarterfnal will feature Li Na versus Maria Sharapova.

AUS OPEN 2012: Women's Semifinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the Women's Semifinals at the 2012 Australian Open. This year I previously predicted 4 of 4 women's quarterfinals correctly and predicted 4 of 4 men's quarterfinals correctly.

Victoria Azarenka BLR (3) vs. Kim Clijsters BEL (11).  The most surprising aspect of the women's quarterfinals results were when 4-time major champion from Belgium beat World #1 Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets  many media outlets called it "an upset." Kim Clijsters has never lost a match to Wozniacki (only played three times) and anyone who appreciates "Big Babe" tennis knows why. Wozniacki can simply be overpowered by big hitting, she is too complacent to be a "Golden Retriever" of the ball. She has a horrendous record against such "Big Babes" as Li Na, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Marion Bartoli, Victoria Azarenka and Petra Kvitova. Clisjsters led 6-3, 5-2 when things started to get complicated with Wozniacki putting up stiffer resistance with Clijster responded by getting tight. Wozniacki forced a tiebreaker which Clijsters was able to gut out 7-4. The tiebreak was dramatic but not as intensely exciting as the 2nd set tiebreak with Li Na where Clijster saved 4 consecutive match points on the way to her 4th round victory. 

The other quarterfinal in this half of the draw was a similar match up between a Big Babe and a counter puncher, i.e. Azarenka versus Agnieska Radwanska. The two best friends played a very scrappy first set of tennis with eight service breaks among the first dozen games played. Azarenka played an an atrocious tiebreak, failing to win a single point. But then she showed her mental toughness by deploying "selective amnesia" and forgot about the recent unpleasantness of the entire first set and proceeded to win the middle set with a bagel. During the third set the weather became a factor and it was clear that (surprisingly) the Pole was more heavily impacted than the Belarussian. Azarenka ended up sprinting to the finish line, winning 6-7(0) 6-0 6-2. Head to head, Clijsters leads Azarenka 4-2 overall (4-1 on hard courts). Clijsters has a decisive advantage in experience, with this being her 16th major semifinal compared to Azarenka's second. Clijsters' semifinal record is 8-7 in semis (although it is 3-0 since she returned after her retirement hiatus). I truly believe that Azarenka will reach a major final very soon, but will she be able to dismiss the defending Australian Open champion on her own turf? I believe the answer is yes. The good news for Azarenka is that it is unlikely that Clijsters is at 100% due to a rolled ankle two rounds before and also that the match will be played at night. PREDICTION: Azarenka.

Maria Sharapova RUS (4) vs. Petra Kvitova CZE (2).  The two took similar paths to reach here, with both only dropping one set each in the first five rounds. In the quarterfinal matches, Kvitova dismissed Sara Errani in two surprisingly tight sets 6-4 6-4 while Sharapova was never really threatened by Ekaterina "Serena-killer" Markarova in their 6-2 6-3 quarterfinal match. This semifinal is a repeat of the 2011 Wimbledon final, which was won relatively easy by Kvitova.

This was a surprising result to some but not to yours truly after closely observing Sharapova's serving woes during that tournament and comparing them to Kvitova's heavy groundstrokes combined with a powerful lefty serve. The good news for Sharapova this time is that she is serving much better in Melbourne than she did last summer in London. Kvitova is averaging around 28 winners per match compared to Sharapova's average of 24. However, Sharapova's service percentage is averaging nearly 70% for the tournament, while Kvitova's is merely 60%. Through five rounds of grand slam play,  Sharapova has an average of 4 doublefaults  compared to 2 aces per match (an inauspicious ratio of 2:1) while Kvitova has a total of 12 doublefaults to 16 aces (with a much better ratio of 3:4). My druthers would be to see a repeat of the Wimbledon final result since I do believe that Kvitova will be the #1 player in the world very soon, and if Sharapova wins the semifinal the first post-Wozniacki #1 will be decided by whoever wins this tournament. Kvitova is still a very streaky player; when she's hot she's unbeatable, when she's cold she's very pedestrian. If she remains on a hot streak long enough she could again take Sharapova out very quickly in straight sets, but it is more likely that Sharapova will be able to put enough resistance to allow Kvitova to cool down and create enough tension to allow the more experienced and mentally tough player (and coincidentally happens to be the one currently playing the better tennis) to pull through. Regardless, it should be an excellent example of Big Babe tennis at its best: a close, hard-hitting, loud match. PREDICTION: Sharapova.

AUS OPEN 2012: Women's Quarterfinals Preview

Caroline Wozniacki DEN (1) vs. Kim Clijsters BEL (11).  "Don't call it a Kimback, she's been here for years!" Defending champion Clijsters survived 4 consecutive match points against 2011 Australian open finalist Li Na and somehow, miraculously was able to gut out the middle set and (mostly) ran away with the third and deciding set to complete one of the most amazing comebacks of recent years. Wozniacki has had a pretty uneventful run to the quarterfinals and dispatched the only other former #1 player to not win a major title (#11 seed Jelena Jankovic) surprisingly easily. However, against the Big Babes of tennis The Golden Retriever has been on the losing end of frequent beat downs during her "reign" at the top of the WTA rankings and I suspect this will just be another one. Losing to Clijsters in the quarterfinal (one round earlier than she was bounced from the tournament last year) will probably result in Wozniacki's demise as World #1, which would probably be relief for her and fan of women's tennis. PREDICTION: Clijsters in 2 sets.

Victoria Azarenka BLR (3) vs. Agnieska Radwanska POL (8).  Azarenka has been cutting through the draw like a hot knife through butter, dropping a mere dozen games through four rounds of Grand Slam tournament play. (Only World #1 Novak Djokovic has been more dominating, losing a gawdy 10 games through 4 rounds of best-of-5-set matches.)  Radwanska is a wily player (some would call her a poor man's Martina Hingis) but Azarenka enjoys a healthy 6-3 career head-to-head advantage over the Pole, including a 5-2 lead in hard court matches. Surprisingly, Azarenka has only won one major quarterfinal in her career (despite playing in 5), while  Radwanska hasn't won any of the four major quarterfinals she has appeared in. Azarenka will make it zero out of five as she reaches her second major quarterfinal, as she starts to finally live up to to her Top 4 seeding. PREDICTION: Azarenka in 2 sets.

Maria Sharapova RUS (4) vs. Serena Williams USA (12) Ekaterina Makarova RUS. One of the most surprising results of the  last five years was Makarova's dismissal of 5-time Australian Open champion Serena Williams  in straight sets the round before. Makarova is clearly confident and loves pace. Serena was not playing her best tennis (3 double faults in one game? Service percentage well below 50%? An average of 2 unforced errors per game?) but Makarova did well to remain calm on the court while her opponent self-destructed. She demonstrated that her thrilling 3-6 6-4 10-8 win over Ana Ivanovic last year was not a fluke. Sharapova is the recipient of the gaping hole Serena's early exit leaves in the draw, and will almost certainly take advantage of her opportunity to produce a rematch of the 2011 Wimbledon final with Kvitova in the bottom half semifinal. PREDICTION: Sharapova in 3 sets.

Zheng Jie CHN Sara Errani ITA vs. Petra Kvitova CZE (2). Future World #1 Kvitova has not been playing her best tennis but has been able to ride out her hot and cold streaks by coasting to wins after building up near insurmountable leads during the hot streaks and minimizing the damage caused by the cold streaks. Surprisingly, this is only Kvitova's 4th major quarterfinal appearance but will almost definitely lead to her 3rd major semifinal appearance. PREDICTION: Kvitova in 2 sets.

2 Great Semis: Serena v Azarenka, Djokovic v Tsonga

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AP

The US Open Series continues in Canada this week with the men playing in Montreal and the women in Toronto (the two tournaments alternate between the two major cities every year). In Toronto, Serena Williams is the last big name standing (after Sharapova, Li Na, Clijsters and Bartoli all lost early); she survived a scare from go-for-broke Lucie Safarova to win 4-6 6-3 6-2 in 2 hours 4 minutes to book a place in the semifinals against Victoria Azarenka. The other semifinal will be Aggie Radwanska versus 2010 French Open finalist Sam Stosur.

On the men's side, World #1 Novak Djokovic continues to play at a different, superior level from the rest of the field, demolishing an in-form Gael Monfils 6-1 6-2 to set up a semifinal with one of the few players on the tour who own a head-to-head advantage over him, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Earlier in the week, Murray, Nadal, Federer and Del Potro all lost. Djokovic and Tsonga last met in the Wimbledon semifinals, where they played the most entertaining match of the tournament before Djokovic won in 4 sets. Curiously, both in that tournament and in this one, Tsonga had beaten Roger Federer in an earlier round. Tsonga leads the head-to-head 5-3 but lost their most important match-up, the 2008 Australian Open final.

They should both be two excellent matches, but I predict Serena and Djokovic will be left standing and will probably win their respective tournaments on the way to the 2011 US Open (which I just got tickets to for 3rd and 4th round action!)