Australian Open awards: Kerber pulls off major upset

Angelique Kerber exults after beating Karolina Pliskova in the
final of the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford last August.
Photo by Mal Taam

   Reflections on the 2016 Australian Open while wondering whatever happened to Karsten Braasch, the quirky German left-hander who wore glasses, had a weird service motion, smoked cigarettes during changeovers and defeated Serena Williams 6-1 and Venus Williams 6-2 in a "Battle of the Sexes" contest at the 1998 Australian Open when he was ranked No. 203:
   Biggest upset -- Speaking of German left-handers, seventh-seeded Angelique Kerber shocked jittery Serena Williams 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 for her first Grand Slam title.
   The 28-year-old Kerber, who lost in the first round of last year's Australian Open and survived a match point in the opening round this year, was playng in her first major final. She defeated Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic to win the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford last August.
   Williams was attempting to tie Steffi Graf of -- yep, Germany -- for second place on the all-time list with 22 Grand Slam singles titles. Margaret Court of Australia has 24.
   Biggest choke -- Williams, a three-time Bank of the West champion (2011, 2012 and 2014), gagged for the second straight Grand Slam tournament.
   Trying to complete the first calendar-year Grand Slam since Graf in 1988, Williams lost to unseeded Italian Roberta Vinci, playing in her first major semifinal at age 32, in the U.S. Open semifinals in one of the biggest upsets in sports history.

Novak Djokovic tied Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg with 11
Grand Slam singles titles. 2015 photo by Paul Bauman

   Most underappreciated player -- Novak Djokovic is quietly climbing on the list of all-time greats. The 28-year-old Serb won his sixth Australian Open crown, matching Aussie Roy Emerson, and tied Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg for fifth place with 11 Grand Slam singles titles.
   Djokovic almost inevitably will top Emerson (12), likely will surpass Pete Sampras and Rafael Nadal (14 each) and could challenge Roger Federer's record of 17. Nadal, who will turn 30 in June, hasn't won a Slam since the 2014 French Open but could add to his total.
   Best matches -- No. 30 seed Jeremy Chardy of France outlasted Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 7-5, 2-6, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 13-11 in the first round.
   Daria Gavrilova, a Moscow-born Australian who won the doubles title in the 2014 Sacramento Challenger, upset No. 28 Kristina Mladenovic of France 6-4, 4-6, 11-9 in the third round.
   Biggest breakthrough -- Zhang Shuai, a 27-year-old Chinese qualifier, was 0-14 in Grand Slam main draw matches and contemplating retirement when she stunned second-seeded Simona Halep 6-4, 6-3 in the opening round.
   Zhang advanced all the way to the quarterfinals before falling to rising star Johanna Konta 6-4, 6-1.
   Biggest flops -- Halep, apparently, was a physical basket case. An Australian Open quarterfinalist the previous two years, she withdrew from Brisbane two weeks before Melbourne with left Achilles' inflammation but advanced to
the Sydney semifinals the following week.
   Five days after losing to Zhang, Halep revealed that she had been struggling with nose, ear and stomach infections. She announced that she would have nose surgery and be out of action until March but later postponed the operation indefinitely.
    Meanwhile, the tailspins of two former No. 1 players continued with first-round losses.
   The fifth-seeded Nadal fell to 32-year-old Fernando Verdasco, the 2010 champion of the now defunct SAP Open in San Jose, 7-6 (6), 4-6, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2 in a 4-hour, 41-minute battle of Spanish left-handers.
   Caroline Wozniacki, seeded 16th, exited against 5-foot-4 (1.63-meter) Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 1-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4. Other than reaching the U.S. Open final for the second time in 2014, Wozniacki has not advanced to a Grand Slam quarterfinal since the 2012 Australian Open.

Lleyton Hewitt, a future Hall of Famer, retired one month
before his 35th birthday. 2013 photo by Paul Bauman

    Most emotional match -- Australia's Lleyton Hewitt, a future Hall of Famer, ended his singles career with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 second-round loss to eighth-seeded David Ferrer of Spain under the lights at Rod Laver Arena.
   Afterward, video tributes to Hewitt from Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray were shown in the arena.
   "It was an unbelievable atmosphere out there," said Hewitt, who won the 2002 SAP Open and reached the 2006 final. "A couple of the roars during the match tonight were as loud as I've ever played in front of. I was getting goose bumps at times."
   Three days later, a third-round loss in men's doubles sent Hewitt into retirement exactly one month before his 35th birthday.
   The 5-foot-10 (1.78-meter) Hewitt won three Grand Slam titles (two in singles and one in men's doubles) and played on two Davis Cup championship teams. He remains the youngest man to reach No. 1, at 20 years, 8 months in 2001. That's one month younger than Marat Safin of Russia in 2000.
    Best supporting actor -- A Murray won an Australian Open title, but not Andy.
   Seventh-seeded Jamie Murray, Andy's older brother, of Great Britain and Bruno Soares of Brazil triumphed in men's doubles in their first Grand Slam tournament together.
   Murray earned his first Grand Slam men's doubles title in his third straight major final.

Andy Murray reached his fifth Australian Open final under
difficult circumstances. He has lost all five. 2015 photo
by Paul Bauman

   Bridesmaid award -- Andy Murray dropped to 0-5 in Australian Open singles finals, a record for futility in a Slam.

   Most stressed-out player -- Andy Murray did well to reach the final while his wife, Kim, was back home in Great Britain awaiting the birth of their first child and her father and Ana Ivanovic's coach, Nigel Sears, collapsed during Ivanovic's third-round night match against Madison Keys.
   Sears was removed on a stretcher and taken to a hospital. He flew home the next day and returned to the practice court with Ivanovic on Wednesday in Manchester, England. He said bad sushi caused his woes.
   Biggest downer -- Match-fixing allegations overshadowed the beginning of the tournament. The BBC and Buzzfeed News reported that tennis authorities had been warned about 16 players but failed to sanction them.
   Half of the players were entered in the Australian Open, according to the reports. All have been ranked in the top 50; none were identified.
  ATP chairman Chris Kermode denied the charges but later announced that an independent review of the tennis' anti-corruption unit would be commissioned to restore "public confidence in our sport."
   Worst-dressed -- Stan Wawrinka needs to add Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, the hosts of the 2003-13 television show "What Not to Wear," to his entourage.
   That coral and neon yellow number has got to go, pronto. Wawrinka won this award for a different outfit at last year's French Open, in which he earned his second Grand Slam singles title.
   Not crazy about Serena Williams' bright yellow two-piece get-up, either. Hey, Serena, you have more money than Donald Trump. You can afford a whole outfit, for crying out loud.

Serena Williams, shown after winning her third Bank
of the West Classic title at Stanford in 2014, seemed
almost as happy as Kerber during the Australian Open
awards ceremony. It helps when you've won 21 Slams.
Tri Nguyen/TriNguyenPhotography.com

   Best TV commercial -- That ESPN spot in which Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski asks a college kid to send former Blue Devil Justise Winslow of the Miami Heat a text message. "Sure, Bobby," the kid says to an oblivious Krzyzewski, as if confusing him with Bobby Knight.
   Krzyzewski thinks the student is relaying what he tells him, but the kid and Winslow actually are texting unrelated emojis back and forth.
   Most tiresome TV commercial -- Just as Wawrinka is monopolizing the worst-dressed award, Visit Melbourne is retiring this one. Last year, it was the "Forever Yours" jingle. This year, it was the "Far and Wide" poem.
  It's not that the commercials are bad. It's that they're aired every five minutes. I must have muted that thing 5,000 times during the tournament.
   As Jerry Seinfeld says on his hilarious "I'm Telling You for the Last Time" CD, "We all get it."
   Best quotes -- Kerber: "When I was match point down (in the first round), I actually had one leg in the plane back to Germany."
   Serena Williams, when someone suggested to her that she looked almost as happy as Kerber during the awards ceremony: "Really? I should get into acting."
   Andy Murray, while accepting the runner-up trophy: "I feel like I've been here before."

French Open awards: Stan, worst commercial, etc.

Stan Wawrinka stunned Novak Djokovic in the
final. 2014 photo by Paul Bauman

   Reflections on the French Open while wondering whatever happened to Nathalie Tauziat:
   Biggest upsets -- Yes, Stan "The Man" Wawrinka already had won a Grand Slam title. And yes, he had beaten Novak "It's No" Djokovic 9-7 in the fifth set en route to the 2014 Australian Open crown.
   But Djokovic was 17-3 against Wawrinka and had won 29 straight matches. Wawrinka, meanwhile, came into the French Open with a 6-4 record in clay-court tune-up tournaments.
   So the eighth-seeded Wawrinka's 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 6-4 victory over the top-ranked Djokovic in the final at Roland Garros was a shocker. Djokovic might have been mentally and physically spent after beating nine-time French Open champion "San" Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the quarterfinals and completing his five-set victory over rival Andy "Bill" Murray the day before the final while Wawrinka rested.
   "I Love" Lucie Safarova's 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory over defending champion Maria Sharapova in the fourth round also came with an asterisk. Sharapova, seeded second, coughed because of a cold throughout the tournament. Granted, Sharapova had barely survived in their most recent meeting, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2) in the first round on clay at Stuttgart last year.
  Safarova, seeded 13th in the French Open, ended Sharapova's streak of three straight French Open finals and went on to reach her first Grand Slam singles final.
   Best match -- Francesca Schiavone and Svetlana Kuznetsova played a mere 3 hours, 50 minutes this time.
   In a battle of past French Open champions, Schiavone upset the 18th-seeded Kuznetsova 6-7 (11), 7-5, 10-8 in the second round.
   Kuznetsova, a 29-year-old Russian, served for the match four times in the third set, and Schiavone, 34, of Italy saved one match point. It was the third-longest women's singles match at Roland Garros in the Open era, which began in 1968.
   Schiavone also beat Kuznetsova in the longest Grand Slam women's match in history, 6-4, 1-6, 16-14 in 4 hours, 44 minutes in the round of 16 at the 2011 Australian Open. 
   Said Schiavone about Kuznetsova's game after their latest marathon: "It's like playing in a mirror."

Serena Williams needed three sets in five of her
seven matches. 2013 photo by Paul Bauman

   Harry Houdini award (best escape artist) -- Five of champion Serena Williams' seven matches went to three sets as she battled the flu, and she lost the first set in four of those.
   Williams trailed former world No. 1 Victoria "Station" Azarenka 3-6, 2-4 in the third round, then won the last four games of the second set and the last six games of the third set.
   Williams fell behind Sloane "Ranger" Stephens 1-6, 4-5 in the fourth round, then won nine of the last 12 games.
   Williams dug a 4-6, 2-3 hole against Timea "Bo" Bacsinszky in the semifinals, then reeled off the last 10 games of the match.
   And Williams was down 2-0 in the third set of the final before winning the last six games.
   Sick or not, Williams is so talented that she consciously or subconsciously lets down to make matches more challenging. Her coach, Patrick Mouratoglu, has said his biggest task is motivating Williams.
   We have seen all this before. See: Agassi, Andre.
   Breakout performer -- No. 23 seed Bacsinszky of Switzerland ousted No. 16 Madison "Avenue" Keys and No. 4 Petra Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion, en route to her first Grand Slam semifinal.
   Bacsinszky, a former child prodigy, has overcome mental demons to soar from No. 285 in the world at the end of 2013 to a career-high No. 15.   

   Bacsinszky was pushed into tennis by her Romanian father, Igor. She excelled as a child not only because of her talent, the New York Times reported last year, but to keep the peace between her father and mother, Suzanne, who have since divorced.

   “I guess I was playing well because I knew that if I would lose a match, my parents would fight, or something,” Bacsinszky, who turned 26 on Monday, told the Times. “I wanted for us to live like a happy family and everything, so for sure I was fighting even more on the tennis court just to make all the things right. Because I knew that if I would win a match or play well, there would be no troubles.”

   As recently as 2013, Bacsinszky pursued a career in hotel management. She can put those plans on the back burner, so to speak. Bacsinszky pocketed 450,000 euros ($509,543) for reaching the semis at Roland Garros.

   Honorable mention goes to unseeded Alison Van Uytvanck, a 21-year-old Belgian who advanced to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal before losing to Bacsinszky.  

   Best shot -- We all know Wawrinka has a sensational one-handed backhand, but this was ridiculous.
   Late in the third set of the men's final, Djokovic hit a sharply angled cross-court backhand. Wawrinka lunged for it and ripped a passing shot between the net post and the IBM box. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX1hKm1Fawc
   Said commentator John McEnroe, himself a pretty fair shotmaker in his day: "Whoa, how'd he do that? ... That's threading the needle."
   "Ishtar" award (biggest flops) -- Simona "I Need" Halep, the third seed and 2014 runner-up, was ousted in the second round by 33-year-old Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.
   Also losing in the second round was fifth-seeded "Sweet" Caroline Wozniacki, dismissed by Julia "She's" Goerges. Wozniacki has advanced past the third round at Roland Garros only once in nine appearances, reaching the quarterfinals in 2010.
   Sixth-seeded Eugenie "In the Bottle" Bouchard's tailspin continued with a first-round loss to Kristina "Applegate" Mladenovic.
   Tim Smyczek award (classiest player) -- With Djokovic serving at 5-4, 30-0 in the second set of the final, Wawrinka laced -- surprise -- a backhand passing shot, and Djokovic gave him a thumb's-up. Granted, after Djokovic lost the game and the set, he smashed his racket twice on the clay and received a warning. Hey, he's human.
   And how about Djokovic's sincere, philosophical speech during the awards ceremony after the three-time runner-up received a prolonged ovation from the crowd?
   "It's not easy for me to speak right now," an emotional Djokovic said, "but I have to say that in life some things are more important than victories, and those are character and respect. I have great respect for you, Stan. You are a great champion with a big heart, and you deserve this title."    
   Most improved nation -- Last year, CiCi Bellis of Atherton in the San Francisco Bay Area was the only American finalist in any of the nine men's, women's, mixed, boys or girls events. Bellis, then 15, was the runner-up in girls doubles with Marketa Vondrousova, then 14, of the Czech Republic.
   This year, one or more Americans appeared in seven finals, and U.S. players won four titles (Williams, Bethanie Mattek-Sands in women's doubles, Mattek-Sands and Mike Bryan in mixed doubles, and Tommy Paul in boys singles).
   Not bad for a nation that supposedly can't play on clay.
   Phyllis Diller award (worst-dressed) -- Wawrinka gets the edge over Jarkko Nieminen.
   Jeez, Stan, where'd you get those shorts, the underwear department at JCPenney? http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/06/stan-wawrinka-shorts-plaid-french-open-yonex-buy-purchase
    Worst TV commercial -- "Hannah and her Horse" (DirecTV) in a landslide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YF6mtOJ0dI
   Annoyance No. 1: The attractive woman lying provocatively in the surf in some tropical paradise. OK, now DirecTV has all the men's attention.
   Annoyance No. 2: The talking horse. Now DirecTV has all the airheads' attention.
   Annoyance No. 3: Naturally, the horse has an Australian accent. Apparently, British and Aussie accents are cool because seemingly every TV commercial in the United States features one or the other (the Geico lizard, that smug jerk on last year's IBM Cloud ads, et al.). OK, now DirecTV has all the hipsters' attention.
   Annoyance No. 4: That reggae-type jingle in the background. OK, now DirecTV has all the Rastafarians' attention. 
   Annoyance No. 5: The name DirecTV. I've had it with the butchering of the English language. Just call it Direct TV, for crying out loud. Are you listening, JCPenney?
   I have a better name for this commercial: "Hannah and her Horse----."