Serena Williams competed in her first tournament as world no. 1 (in her 6th time at the top) and was successful in winning the Miami crown, though not without difficulty. She has owned Sharapova for many years, but had to come from a set down to beat her the final. She also dropped sets to Cibulkova and Li at this tourament. Does this mean the field is catching up Williams or that while not playing her best she was able to fight through to victory?
Andy Murray kept the Big 4's stranglehold on the Masters going, despite Federer and Nadal skipping the tournament and Djokovic's early departure. But his final was also not without incident as he had to save a match point to beat Ferrer. Ferrer also struggled in this tournament, nearly bowing out to Haas in the semis, trailing by a break in the 3rd set.
2) Andy Murray (GBR) def. 3) David Ferrer (ESP) 2-6 6-4 7-6(1)
1) Serena Williams (USA) def. 3) Maria Sharapova (RUS) 4-6 6-3 6-0
-Murray wins his 26th career title, 2nd of 2013, last '13 Brisbane
-It is his 9th career Masters tile, last '11 Shanghai. This ends an 11 Masters tournament drought lasting 1.5 years.
-It is his 2nd win in Miami ('09)
-It moves him to sole possession of 6th place all time in Masters titles (since 1990) behind Nadal, Federer, Agassi, Djokovic, and Sampras
-He retakes the no. 2 ranking from Federer, and another minor note - Ferrer retakes no. 4 from Nadal
-Serena wins her 48th career title, 2nd of 2013, last '13 Brisbane
-It is her 13th "Tier I" title, last '12 Madrid
-It is her 6th win at Indian Wells ('02,'03,'04,'07,'08)
-She solidifies her hold on the no. 1 ranking, but is defending upcoming titles in Charleston and Madrid
Do these two finals results along with some of the other goings-on in Miami mean the playing field is leveling or are they a blip on the radar screen? Consider some of the happenings.
-Serena lost 3 sets in the tournament, including one to Sharapova, whom she has dominated recently
-Haas made the semis and nearly beat Ferrer
-Del Potro crashed out early
-Kvitova crashed out early
-Jankovic made the semis
-Djokovic lost in the 4th round
-Berdych lost to Gasquet in the quarters
My feeling is that this is just a blip, especially on the men's side. The women seem strong at the very top (Serena, Azarenka, Sharapova, Radwanska) but there seems be lots of fluctuation below them. Djokovic had looked very strong winning the Aussie Open and Indian Wells but I expect he may have been fatigued and should be back for the clay. This does say a lot for Murray though because once Djokovic went out he was expected to win, and win he did. I am still confident that the majority of top 5/top 10 players will be on their games week in week out. After all, the biggest 4 women's tournaments have gone to the top 3 players and the now top 2 men have split the 3 biggest men's tournaments.
The women will play in Charleston this coming week while the men the spread to the far corners of the earth for Davis Cup. I'll have an update on the latter in the coming days. I'm also going to try to update my top 10 by birth year stats, but won't guarantee that.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment