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Roger Federer won his first match down under, ie. the Australian Open, defeating James Duckworth of Australia, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2. Federer look a bit sketchy in the first set, got a bit better in the second, and then cruised in the third. But then again, when we say sketchy referring to Federer, take it with a grain of salt. Roger is using a new, larger Wilson racquet, 98″ as opposed to his 90″ magic wand that has seen him amass an unequaled total of 17 Grand Slam titles. Roger is competing in his record setting 57th consecutive Grand Slam tournament. Stefan Edberg, the former Swedish number one, has joined Team Federer. Severin Luthi is the head coach of Team Federer, but will be very interesting to see what Edberg has to contribute. Watching the match, you could observe Luthi and Edberg conversing, along with Mirka (Roger’s wife, never underestimate what influence she has on his tennis!). Anyhow, Roger is going to need some time to adjust to the new, larger racquet, but hopefully he can make a deep run in this tournament, perhaps even make it #18!! He was outstanding on his first serve, winning virtually all of those points, had 5 double faults as he was really going for it on his second serve. He needs to improve on his break point percentage (has been his weakness in the past couple of years) but hopefully with time, he will adjust to the power and touch of the new racquet and give us some more magic. Meanwhile, in a much anticipated first match for #1 Rafael Nadal vs. Tomic of Australia, a bit of a letdown. Tomic was forced to retire due to injury after losing the first set to Nadal, 4 – 6. The big story of this first Grand Slam of the year has been the temperatures…105 degrees during the Fed match during the heat of the day with the expectations of seeing 108 degrees plus. WOW! But gotta say, experiencing weather in the fifties and looking at possible snow flurries tomorrow (ATL), wish I was there! American John Isner was forced to retire due to an ankle injury in his first match, very disappointing. Big match on Rod Laver Arena featured Lleyton Hewitt vs. A. Seppi. Hewitt lost in five awesome sets…6-7, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, 5-7. Very disappointing for the Aussie crowd but great effort by “Rusty”!
Djokovic advanced with ease in his first match down under. Murray won in three sets, Del Potro needed four sets to prevail. So….next up for Federer…Stepanek? I only care about Roger when all is said and done. GO FED!
Moving to Pop Culture…everyone enjoy the Golden Globes on Sunday evening? I thought they were GREAT! Loved to see Matthew McConaughey win Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club…All Right, All Right, All Right! Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence won for American Hustle and Jared Leto joined McConaughey in collecting hardware for Dallas Buyers Club. Plus, Spike Jonze won best Screenplay for Her! Really a great night! Much more of course, but those were the highlights for me!
Until later…
