After only two months working for Caroline Wozniacki, coach Ricardo Sanchez has been dropped from her team. It appears as though the split was caused after Caroline’s father Piotr, still looked like he was the sole lead in coaching his daughter.
After losing at the Australian Open, Wozniacki has gone down in the rankings to No. 4 in the world. It is unknown who she will hire as a new coach or if she will hire another coach at all, but she hasn’t been confident on the road to a Slam win ever since claiming that number one spot. Her father Piotr is quoted saying that his daughter just didn’t get a lot of inspiration from Sanchez and he couldn’t handle being the one in the middle of the father-daughter coaching relationship.
Hopefully because of her drop, Caroline will find a new hunger to pursue her goal of becoming a Grand Slam champion. She actually has a good chance at the upcoming Roland Garros in May. Well known for her ability to play defense, on a surface like clay it’s really important to use the maximum amount of your agility to get to every ball, so hopefully she will have a breakthrough there and a strong record coming into Paris.
Novak Djokovic had an amazing Australian Open 2012 and it was capped off with a win in the final over Rafael Nadal 5-7 6-4 6-2 6-7 7-5. Novak is again the top of the world and has now won the last three Grand Slam titles in a row.
Unlike other tennis news sources Im not going to give you a big run down of the final. Instead you can head to: Bleacher Report | BBC
I would much rather show you some private Novak Djokovic photos after the win.
Victoria Azarenka is the new world number 1 and Australian Open 2012 womens singles champion!
Sharapova got an early 2-0 lead, but since then has struggled to win a game. Sharapova has just sat at the baseline and hit out for the whole match without success. Azarenka has been out hitting Sharapova from the baseline, but Sharapova has never even thought about changing her game plan.
Azarenka has been so pumped up throughout and claimed the title 6-3 6-0.
Poor old Rafael Nadal broke down to tears when he injured his knee before the Australian Open 2012. Its amazing what a few weeks can do and a shit load of pain killers!
“I explained that after my match on the first, what happened the Sunday before on my knee, something very strange,” he said. ”But that’s why, because Sunday afternoon, 24 hours to play my first match, I was in my room crying because I believe I didn’t had the chance to play Melbourne. So it was a very, very tough situation for me, these hours. Two weeks later I am here in the finals, so is a dream for me because having very bad expectations 24 hours before the first match, and now two weeks later I am playing well.”
I’m sitting here watching the Australian Open 2012 semifinal between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic and couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. Firstly, Andy Murray got off to a poor start but then he came back and just secured the third set, which put him ahead 2 sets to 1. However, in typical Murray fashion he has now been broken twice at the beginning of the fourth set and is down 4-0. Murray, why do I always expect you to choke in the big moments?
I really think whoever wins this match is going to lose in the final to Rafael Nadal. Nadal is just going to have way to much fight for either Murray or Djokovic.
We finally got a video of the Bernard Tomic (I call my own lines!) incident against Alexandr Dolgopolov. Tomic basically stopped when he called his own lines and called the ball out and the suddently claimed the point when the official didnt think he stopped. What do you think?
p.s. It was very hard to find the footage, so hopefully it stays on YouTube!
Kim Clijsters and Victoria Azarenka have made their way into the Australian Open 2012 semifinals. Azarenka has a close first set, but then turned up the head to win in three sets, 6-7, 6-0, 6-2 against Agnieszka Radwanska. While Kim Clijsters pushed past Caroline Wozniacki 6-2 7-6.
This now means we will have a new number 1 female player in the world after the Australian Open.
Kei Nishikori has become the first Japanese male player to make the quarterfinals of the Australian Open with his 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 upset of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
“When you have a guy in front of you who return everything, even when you serve 215 [kilometers per hour], it put lot of pressure,” Tsonga said. “It’s tough to play against him because he run a lot and everything’s coming back. Even when he’s far in the point, he come back on his line.”
Tomas Berdych acted like a child at the Australian Open 2012 and was booed off court after Nicolas Almagro hit a ball that struck Berdych during a point toward the end of the fourth set. Berdych thought this was done deliberately, but come on its a serious game of tennis and you need to do whatever you have to do to win.
Almagro put the shot away and then approached the net to apologize, but Berdych didn’t respond to him.
Poor old Li Na left the Chinese press in tears after she choked and didn’t convert four match points against Kim Clijster. Li Na lost 4-6, 7-6, (6), 6-4.
“Maybe 6-2 up in the tiebreak I was a little bit shocking,” Li told reporters in English.
Shame.. I can now see Kim Clijsters going on to make the final and possibly even win the title.
Lleyton Hewitt has continued his great run in the Australian Open 2012. Hewitt defeated (23) Milos Raonic 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3 in a todays night match.
Hewitt has been struggling with recent injuries, but he still looks very determined and has been working really hard to show some good results.
Raonic has also been struggling with injuries and Im sure he will be back in the later stages of the Australian Open in the coming years.
David Nalbandian was fined $8,000 for his outburst on Friday where he threw water at a staff member at the Australian Open. The incident happened in his match against John Isner and frankly I can easily see why he got upset!
Nalbandian commented about his penalty and said, “ridiculous playing this kind of tournament with this kind of umpires.”
Other penalties included:
Julien Benneteau’s $2,500 penalty for verbal abuse is the next highest.
Marcos Baghdatis was fined $1,250 for smashing four rackets on Wednesday.
Overall, I think Baghdatis got the best out of the penalties, it could have been a lot worse! Additionally, it got him a huge amount of press!
Matthew Ebden is out of the Australian Open 2012, but he put up an amazing fight. Ebden lost in five sets to 24th seed Kei Nishikori 1-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1.
“I think it’s extremely disappointing, but I have to give him a bit of credit. Probably for an hour and a half he might have missed less than five balls,” Ebden said.
Here I am doing what I love, so I’m just going to take it on the chin, look to be better, stronger, fitter, become a better player out of it and try to win that one next time.
Jelena Dokic got a bit of a tennis lesson today from Marion Bartoli today. Bartoli won the match 6-3 6-2. The match overall was quite boring with a lot of unforced errors, Dokic hit 28 herself. I can see Bartoli doing quite well in the rest of the tournament and Im sure she will make at least the semifinals.
David Nalbandian seemed to get ripped off in his Australian Open 2012 match against John Isner. It was 8 all in the fifth set and Nalbandian had a break point which was overruled. Then Nalbandian decided to challenge the call, but the umpire and tournament referee told him that he took too long to challenge the call. This is crazy! What a joke. In the end the ball left a mark on court and it was going to be a second serve for Isner at break point 8 all in the fifth set. In the end Isner won 10-8 in the fifth set, but really it should have been the other way!
Last night (Australian time) I was watching Marcos Baghdatis and Stanislas Wawrinka match. Baghdatis seemed to be in complete control in the first set, but really struggled to close out the set. This seemed to become a trend for the rest of the match.
Wawrinka won the match 7-6 6-4 5-7 6-1.
p.s. Did I mention that Baghdatis broke four racquets during the match! Great to see some emotion on court from a top player (shows it means a lot).
Lleyton Hewitt has moved into the third round of the Australian Open 2012 at the expense of Andy Roddick. Roddick had to retire injured with Hewitt leading two sets to one at the time.
Hewitt was leading 3-6 6-3 6-4.
“In the last four years I’ve had five surgeries, and last year I played just two grand slams and two Davis Cup ties,” Hewitt said.
“I came in here with nothing to lose, I’ll play with my heart on my sleeve and see where it gets me.”
Hewitt will now play Canadian Milos Raonic in the third round.
