Australian Open 2002

Predictions:

Tomorrow morning's (Brit time) battle: Henman in 4 tight sets vs Rusedski.

Semi-final line-up: (Men) Federer vs Sampras; Golmard vs Henman. (Women) Capriati vs Henin; Hingis vs Raymond.

see "It's like June already"

The papers were saying that Tommy Haas was the highest seed left in it, I am confused.

Haas = #7, Henman = #6.

Doh, my semi tip Jerome Golmard is gone in R3! Don't listen to me, kids.

[Should we go back to the other thread now?]

And Lisa Raymond offered only token resistance against Maggie Maleeva! I am an idiot.

Tim & Greg have both held their opening service games...

(And now I must go out, armed only with a pocket AM radio).

Go Go Gregovic.

If there's a god, Roger Federer will scoop the men's this year. But there isn't. Never mind, he's only young,

And where is the delectable Dominique van Roost when I need her?

Federer is my tip too, the coverage of this championships has been appalling, nothing on terrestrial (timmy vs Greg excepted), nothing on sky and about a couple of hours of highlights on Eurosport late at night. Terrible.

Tim is landing over 80% of his first serves - an incredible percentage in a game of this pressure.

And my favourite quote about this epic clash so far is "Both use a serve and volley modus operandi."

Jonnie, are you watching or listening?

Rusedski is landing 70% of his too, which for a power server like him is bloody good too. So Henman wins the first set despite Greg playing better? this could go the distance, especially if Timmy has his usual third set slump.

scratch that, Timmy's gonna piss it.

FITEback!

not half, Greg wins the third 6-1, a true test of Tim's mettle (this is the cliche of the moment it seems)

and the Aussie pundit takes the English commentators to trask for being parochial and not thinking that anyone from any other nation would be interested in this all English tie. Good, it seems to be an excellent game, I wish I was watching it.

Stupid BBC website, not updating quickly enough. 5-3 to Tiffany in the 4th. Update, update!

Oh bollocks.

Five Live was the way to go - walked all the way to North Dulwich, up Alleyns and Hunts Slip Road, with me little tranny [insert gag here]. Out of the, ahem, jobcentre in time to catch Timbo serving for it on a widescreen telly in a shop on Lordship Lane. Seemed like a great match. Anyone see the big moment of controv, when Rusedski reached break-point trailing 5-3 in the 2nd and claimed a Henman volley was long? Chris Bailey on R5 called it in, but seemed to have doubts later.

TH really should reach the final in this form, but Bjorkman next is dangerous. I shall add my voice to the muttering consensus on Federer's title hopes.

My predictions fell flat -- of the people I picked on the men's side (Agassi, Hewitt, Haas, Grosjean, with Escude and Mirnyi as dark horses), only Haas and Escude are still in it. I'm thrilled that Todd Martin's still there, but I can't say I feel great about his chances against Haas (and after that, Federer awaits, though I think he actually has a good shot against RF). On the other hand, it's exciting to have so many chances for relative unknowns to get surprisingly far -- for instance, either Koubek, Gonzalez, Jiri Novak or Hrbaty will make it to the semis. Who would've picked one of them at the start of the tournament? And yet, there it is.

On the women's side, things are pretty predictable so far. Hingis has far exceeded my expectations, though -- she's annihilating everyone she faces. It should be interesting to see what happens when she's really tested, especially as Venus Williams is showing signs of being less than 100%.

Stayed up until 4:20am GMT for the Henman vs Bjorkman match - well worth it actually, as Jonas was on fire. Timmy picked a bad day to revert to type as far as feeble second serves go; climax to the 2nd-set t/b was truly ridiculous: Henman failing to kill any of three volleys at set-point, and Bjorkman smashing Henman's smash for a winner at 6-6.

I expect this marks the end of the BBC live coverage, which is a shame as the women's event is hotting up and the top half of the men's draw has some real crackers coming up (Safin vs Sampras tomorrow morning our time; anything involving Federer).

The Henman-Bjorkman match was STUNNING.

Henin, Clijsters are crushing all before them - shame they have to meet next. Capriati struggling, but probably playing well enough to see off Mauresmo?

Haas overhauls Federer in epic, and Wayne Ferreira - almost as old as me - outlasts Costa 9-7 in the 5th to reach his first Aussie qf since '92. Meanwhile Marcelo Rios, who I personally thought was completely finished, is in his best form in three years and could conceivably win the bloody thing.

Safin is murdering Sampras as I type: up two sets and a break.

...but Pete breaks back! The umpteenth recovery from 0-2 in the men's event? Place yr bets...

I don't know why I bother looking at the BBC "live" site. Either there's a 10 minute lag or Mike is providing clairvoyant services.

www.ausopen.org is where you want to go, Tag. If you have a super- fast work connection you can probably even outdo me by pulling up the IBM Real-Time scoreboard. I'm relying on refreshes on the main scoreboard page, which tells me that...

Sampras is 4-2 up in the 3rd set tie-break...

Last Henman related thing

Venus Williams smashed a sizzling serve faster than Tim Henman's best as she powered into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.

Henman was pathetic, though Bjorkman did play exceptionally well, and I curse him for making me stay up so late on Saturday night.

3rd set Sampras. Another late night for Pete after the marathon vs Escude.

[Now you all know where I'm getting my up-to-the-second info, I need no longer loiter in this thread. Just as well as I've stuff to do which doesn't involve this PC...]

Thank you, Mike, that's much better.

Safin v Sampras - 4th set tie break!

And Safin wins and Pete cries. Well, perhaps not.

And there was great rejoicing. (YAY.)

Seles eclipses Venus, Johansson whitewashes Bjorkman in first set and goes on to win in 4, Hingis in dropping-more-than-four-games shocker, Novak a set up vs Koubek (who really shouldn't be here - having lost the first two sets in each of his first two matches [0-6 1-6 v Saulnier in r1]).

Comments (especially from anyone fortunate enough to have seen any of this)?

And England beat India by 16 runs. Not tennis, I know, but equally exciting.

aint wanked over tennis since navratilova. lesbo you see therefore unobtainable therefore chronic turn on.

Venus Williams out!(of the tournament I mean in case you were thinking I was comparing her to Navratilova). In the words of the late Brian Moore "It's up for grabs now!". I don't want Seles to win, her infantile warblings annoy the shit out of me.

*sob* I want Venus to win everything. Maybe she can do a Jeff Gillooley on Monica and bully her way into the Hingis match in the resulting confusion?

Having Seles win would be pretty excellent, actually. Right now, my main goal is to see Hingis lose. I applaud her return to form, now let's have someone knock her back on her ass again!

venus looks like a horse.

Hmmm, have to say that my interest in the men's event has faded somewhat now... Haas vs Safin and Johansson vs Novak don't look particularly exciting as semis or as the source for a final tie.

I would've loved Rios to have continued his run (but not if he ultimately turned in a final performance like the one vs Korda a few years ago) whilst Ferreira, I suppose, was bound to run out of gas (but I expected him to last more than seven games in his qf). It must be Safin's title (and year?).

Surprisingly one-sided women's qf, but at least it does leave us with a couple of cracking semis.

Oh, I don't know -- Haas vs. Johansson wouldn't be so great, but Safin vs. (Novak/Johansson) could be a lot of fun.

If Seles wins this thing, a lot of people are going to have to eat crow...

Hingis recovers to beat Seles 6-4 in the 3rd, Capriati vs Clijsters tight for two sets, but Jen walks it in set #3. Johansson beats Novak from 2-1 down in just under three hours.

Would like to have seen those women's semis (both finals are thankfully on BBC1/2 over the weekend).

Still don't understand the principle of splitting the men's semis over two days - or, indeed, persisting with the practice of different halves of the draw playing on different days beyond the first week. Wimbledon (partly because it [uniquely] has a rest day on the middle Sunday - though it's the GS that can least afford such luxury [no floodlights, no roof, worst weather]) doesn't do this, and I think they're right. US Open doesn't split the men's semis either - they do something worse: play them both on the Saturday for the benefit of TV (though one might struggle to come up with a convincing example of a player so utterly drained by his exertions under the lights at 11pm on the Sat, that he was unable to perform on the Sunday - perhaps Sampras in '92 [though opponent Edberg slogged through five hours vs Chang in the afternoon heat earlier]).

Predictions: Safin to beat Haas in four and win the final in three. Hingis to beat Capriati in three.

(remember foakes, this is da guy who tipped Raymond, Golmard and Henman upthread). Otherwise, well said, Michael

(remember foakes, this is da guy who tipped Raymond, Golmard and Henman upthread).

Hey - don't forget Sampras, Federer and Henin. I was so wrong about the semis it isn't funny. It starts off being funny, but then goes on right past funny and ends up at not-funny.

I actually hope I'm wrong about the men's final, as I'd like to see a bit more of a match than I feel Johansson is likely to give Safin. Watch Safin lose to Haas, now.

Waaaargghhhhhh!!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1775000/images/_1779005_hingis300_s hot.jpg

that is fucking scary dude

Pteradon Hingis!

Safin beat Haas 6-2 in the 5th in the second men's semi, in 4 1/2 hrs. Seems like Haas had his measure until a rain break early in the 4th (and the subsequent closing of the roof) swung things Marat's way. Lots of smashed rackets.

And Capriati defends! Not bad, that should make Dan happy.

Just watched the whole of the women's final on tape. Bizarre match. Only for a brief period at the end of the second set were both players playing well at the same time.

Hingis up 5-1 in the 1st, lost the double-break, eventually prevailed 6-4. Hingis up a double-break again in the 2nd, loses that, holds four championship points (one at 5-3, two at 6-5, one in t/b) but Capriati saves the lot (and genuinely saves them). After a 10-minute heat break (court temp close to 40C), Hingis crumbles - Jen mis-times a few groundstrokes to gift her an early break in the 3rd, but Martina fails to win another game. She's particularly hopeless from 2-3, being foot-faulted four times (including twice on break point) and barely able to keep the ball in court. Sad.

Tremendous gutsy performance from JC, but you do wonder whether MH really has the heart for this anymore.