Here’s hoping you tennis players have been watching and enjoying the Australian Open.
The story lines of this tournament have been many and remarkable. Roger Federer has returned following knee surgery and hoped to make the quarterfinals. The thirty-five year old has turned back the clock, played brilliantly, and will compete in the semifinals on Thursday.
Dennis Istomin came into the tournament ranked 117 and proceeded to send world #2 Novak Djokovic to an early exit in five grueling sets. Coko Vandeweghe played a pretty pedestrian match and made it past Canadian Eugenie Bouchard. Hardly anyone give her a shot against world number one Angelique Kerber of Germany. Coko soundly beat Kerber playing out of her mind and then thrashed French Open champion Garbine Muguruza 6-4,6-0 to earn her berth in the semis.
The tournament’s biggest and most compelling story belongs to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni. She arrived on the women’s tour in the mid nineties and won a Grand Slam doubles title before her seventeenth birthday. She was off the tour for nearly five years and had to endure enormous abuse from her father. Lucia-Baroni is on a mission. She best US Open finalist Karoline Plishkova in three tough sets yesterday to make it to the semifinals where she’ll face Serena Williams.
Reflecting further on her comeback, Lucic-Baroni was quoted in the New York Times this week as saying: “I had a choice to cave or to grow and blossom from it. I took the latter choice, and I’m very proud of myself and my family, that we got away from that. I didn’t let it destroy me. It was difficult, sure, but I believe you really have a choice in everything. You either pick yourself up by the bootstraps and you move on and become stronger from your experiences. or you falter.
Serena Williams is the odds on favorite to win on Thursday in a rematch of their last meeting at Wimbledon nearly 20 years ago.
It would be a touch of class if Serena does something different if she wins. How nice if she had Mirjana accompany her for the on court post match interview. Other than the fairytale of Lucic-Baroni winning the tournament, this would be one of the greatest few minutes tennis has ever seen.
Tune in…this is must watch tennis on Thursday.
** Kudos to 23 year old American Jennifer Brady. She authored another of the amazing stories in Melbourne. She had won a total of two WTA matches before this tournament. Jennifer won three qualifying matches and then three matches in the main draw to make it to the round of 16. Brady was two years old when Lucic-Baroni arrived on the tennis scene. The future looks bright for Ms. Brady!
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