Australian Open: Semifinals

After the surprising loss by Serena last night, the women's draw is wide open as American tennis has found a new female hero.  Federer also survived what could have been a similarly surprising loss by ousting Tsonga in 5 competitive sets.  I watched the last hour or so of the Serena match and my opinion is that while the injury hampered her for a few games and prevented her from competing much in the end of the 2nd set, she was playing well enough to win in the 3rd set, but Stephens took the match from her.  We'll never if a fully healthy Serena loses that match, but the injury alone didn't cause the loss.  She was up a break by the way in the 3rd set before Stephens closed it out with 3 straight games, 2 of them breaks.

Here are the last four in each draw:

Men
1) Novak Djokovic (SRB) - 18th major semifinal (4th at the AO), 8-9 record (3-0), 11th consecutive SF
2) Roger Federer (SUI) - 33rd major semifinal (10th at the AO), 24-8 record (5-4), last '12 Wimbledon
3) Andy Murray (GBR) - 12th major semifinal (4th at the AO), 5-6 record (2-1), 3rd consecutive SF
4) David Ferrer (ESP) - 5th major semifinal (2nd at the AO), 0-4 record (0-1), 2nd consecutive SF

Women
1) Victoria Azarenka (BLR) - 5th major semifinal (2nd at the AO), 2-2 record (1-0), 3rd consecutive SF
2) Maria Sharapova (RUS) - 16th major semifinal (6th at the AO), 7-8 record (3-2), 2nd consecutive SF
6) Na Li (CHN) - 4th major semifinal (3rd at the AO), 2-1 record (1-1), last '11 French Open
29) Sloane Stephens (USA) - 1st career major semifinal!

-Five of the 8 semifinalists are repeats from last year with Ferrer replacing Nadal on the men's side and Li and Stephens stepping in for Clijsters and Kvitova on the women's.
-Djokovic has clinched the no. 1 ranking, the only movement that can happen now in Ferrer getting to no. 3 if he defeats Federer in the final (like that's ever going to happen).
-Serena is still no. 1 in the virtual rankings, but if either Azarenka or Sharapova reach the final, whichever one of them goes farther will be no. 1 on Monday.
-The top 4 men's seeds hadn't all convened in the semis since the Aussie Open last year, but before that it happened 3 times in 4 majors ('11 French Open, '11 US Open, '12 Aussie Open).  Three of the top four men's seeds have been in the semis now for 8 straight majors, going back to the '11 Aussie Open when 5-Murray and 7-Ferrer spoiled the party.
-This is the first major to have the top 2 women's seeds in the semis since Wozniacki and Zvonareva at the '11 Aussie Open.
-The men have now combined to reach 68 semis as opposed to just 26 for the women, who had no chance to win that competition when Serena went out.

Murray is going to be tough for Federer to overcome after his 5-set match and Murray's tough draw.  Djokovic looked good after his 5-set match against Wawrinka and should be able to handle Ferrer, who is himself coming off a 5-set win over Almagro.

With Serena out, I expect Azarenka to make the final, though I do expect a decent fight from Stephens.  Li and Sharapova should have a great match and though at the beginning of the tournament I expected Li to more than Sharapova in Melbourne, I am now going to tip Sharapova due to her spectacular play early on.