The Whole Delivery

Although Dominika Cibulkova is in the best form of her career at the moment, she is the clear underdog in this final. Quite simply, Li Na does everything better than her, even on the forehand side where Li can break down and the Slovakian can get into the zone. Most importantly is the serve, where Cibulkova has fired just only a handshake full of aces and Li has broken her at will to win all four of their previous matches. It will take a heavy choke from Li Na to lose in her third Australian Open final, and with Carlos Rodriguez continuing to keep her calm after surviving Lucie Safarova, it is the Chinese superstar destined for the title in routine fashion I believe. A second Grand Slam for Li Na, and I think in routine fashion. The Result Li 6-1, 6-4

It really is annoying whenever someone talks about someone they don't know in a negative light without knowing at least some semblance about that person. It's even more annoying and disturbing when supposed journalists or news organizations talk about a person without knowing their backstory and lumping them recklessly with incongruous and idiotic assumptions. It gets yours' truly to his boiling point when I witness people who have no sense of sports journalism, and in particularly tennis journalism, and indolently do a report about a player without any knowledge of that player before that player's current incident enters the mainstream discussion, leading supposed journalists to write a poor piece not cognizant of who they are writing about. Today, we have been presented with that very sad and ridiculous case. For those casual tennis (or sports) fans or not, but know about Serena Williams, here's a quick runthrough on this asinine and completely mind-num...

Photo from FFT (Safina is one step closer to her first Grand Slam) Dinara Safina is one step closer to quieting all the critics by consolidating her number one ranking with her first Grand Slam title. Only her countrywoman, two time finalist stands in her way. Safina was all business today in her semifinal against the game Dominika Cibulkova. Despite seven double faults, Safina advanced to the finals of Roland Garros for a second consecutive year with a 6-3, 6-3 victory. The 20 year old Slovakian, in her first Grand Slam semifinal, exhibited the grit that has lead her near the Top 10 in the WTA world rankings, making the top ranked player earned every bit on the court today. The scoreline flattered Safina, because the match was much more arduous than the end result showed. Both players had the same amount of break points chances (eight), but Safina converted half of them while Cibulkova only broke once. For Kuznetsova, her task was harder however, as the veteran Australian Samantha St...

Photo from Matthew Stockman of Getty Images (It was completely ugly today for Sharapova The yups were once again prevalent for Maria Sharapova today. A comeback and another dramatic three set win, however, was not. The three time Grand Slam champion crashed out in stunning form to Slovakian riser Dominika Cibulkova by the convincing score line of 6-0, 6-2. In fact, if it wasn't for the American Russian's grit and determination to not give up, the match could have easily ended up 6-0, 6-0, as Cibulkova was one point away from doing just so. Instead, Sharapova fought off four match points and had the crowd behind her to try to possibly make a historic comeback (a far cry from last year where the crowd was excoriating her with boos in her dramatic defeat to Dinara Safina in the 4th round). But Cibulkova displayed terrific grit and stayed the course, scoring the biggest win of her career in advancing to her first Grand Slam semifinal. And that opponent facing her in that semifinal ...