The Madness Keeps Coming

Ok, This Aussie Open is going down in the books, as pretty much rocking. And I don't even care that my picks were fairly disastrous. Thanks, Andy Murray and Agnes Szavay. I will still root for them though - and probably pick them to do well, only to get those hopes dashed. Anyway, the fun kinda started with crazy long matches, including the premature ousting of Andy Roddick from another major, the most exciting Federer scare from Funky Serb, (not to be confused with Pretty Serb, Hammy Serb, and Delightful Serb). From there we saw the most historic match (so far!) of this Open, as, in case you haven't heard, trashy Lleyton Hewitt played newly cleaned-up Marcos Baghdatis in a match that didn't start until 11:47pm local time and ended circa 4:30 am. It was a great match, except the wrong person won. This day also included a wonderful press conference where new matriarch Venus Williams defended her refusal to be moved to another court so Lleyton could go on earlier. She was poised and graceful, basically like her swinging volleys, but in oratory form:

Q. Is it correct that the referee or the scheduling people gave you the option of not playing tonight and holding over to tomorrow?

VENUS WILLIAMS: I'll tell you a synopsis of what happened, and I really don't want to take any more questions about that. But basically the day session went longer, and, you know, the tournament did ask if Sania and I would consider playing at Vodafone or playing tomorrow.

Both of us didn't want to, for reasons that we felt like our match was important. We also felt like we wanted the schedule to go as planned and that, you know, we are very good players and wanted to play.

Also for the fact that we were in doubles and Sania is also in mixed. So that makes it very difficult for us too. So the tournament definitely listened to us, and gave us the opportunity to go out there and play some great women's tennis.

I think we're both happy with the result of what the tournament chose, and we played some good tennis for the crowd.

OK, but then came last night - when things went bonkers, but in a great way. It started with a match which clearly was to pull on my heartstrings: Serena vs. Jelena Jankovic. A year ago, I was still hating Serena. I admit my error and plain, wrong, and dumb thinking for so many years. But she was a fun cat-suited nemesis for a while. Now, I am pretty much on team Serena, but she really needs to dress up a bit more; she looks like a soccer mom who just got out of Curves and is running into the grocery store. So I was kinda for Serena, but that was only because we didn't know what was happening in the subsequent match (see below). But Jelena is probably my favorite woman's player, because she is just so fun to watch and kinda silly, but moves like a gazelle; there, I actually said that. But she is pretty much a non-stop giggle and emotional delight on court. Anyway, back to the match, because let's keep our judgment based solely on the tennis, k? Jelena did everything she needed to do. She ran everything down and kept up the power and pace, and pretty much nailed anything that was a backhand. Serena, was clearly sub-Serena. Every commentator is in a tizzy because her "collapse" was so unexplainable. I have the answer. She had an off day. She knew what she needed to do; her heart was in it and she tried; she couldn't get things to work and her opponent pushed some buttons. It was a fun match to watch, and really most Janky matches are. And because Justine lost later, we are fine with Jelena winning here. Frankly, she needed a breakthrough against a real top player at a major.

Ok...Now on to the real excitement: Justine (I haven't lost since that freak Marion Bartoli match at Wimbledon) Henin vs. Maria (I am a top player, I really am) Sharapova. This match was scheduled to start at 3:30am, and I really thought about waking up for it. I set my alarm actually, but when it went off, I just decided to let it go. I am a working man, after all. So I lingered and didn't sleep well and actually dreamed about seeing the Yahoo headline of a Sharapova win. At 6:57 I woke up and turned on australianopen.com, and there was the magical headline "Sharapova sizzles Past Helpless Henin" This post is getting very long so let's cut to the chase. The score made my day 6-4, 6-0. But it wasn't until I saw the replay of the match later in the day where it really sunk in. Henin was helpless. She kinda got it together late in the first set, but really she was a scrambling mess and Sharapova stood there like a giant and controlled everything. She was shrieking; her shots were booming. I love how she hits the ball so unnecessarily hard all the time, but it worked and she made some sick angles. Her serve is on fire. Way to go, Maria (I will stand wherever you hit the ball, and hit an unreal winner past you) Sharapova.

This was such a crazy day, mind you. Oscar Noms, Heath Ledger, and at some point I may have to get political to defend my Obama against that shrew.