2016 Australian Open Womens Final - Serena Williams [1] vs Angelique Kerber [7]

[PDJ]

I'm not the one who brought it up, but the last time Serena and Kim played was in 2009. If you check Maria's head to head with Serena at the end of 2009, it was the same number of wins and losses (2-7).

And Clijsters led Sharapova 5-4. Only 2 matches at a major with 1 apiece.

 

[sarag]

Yawn.....did you even watch Kerber in this tournament?

25 winners against Serena/13 UFE
31 winners against Vika (in a two-set match......three more than her opponent)/16 UFE

Her game is all about pushing the ball back again and again until her opponent either makes an error or can't keep up after the 20th ball, at which point she'll go DTL for an easy winner. As far away from 1st strike tennis as you'll get. Last year this time. she tried playing attacking tennis and failed and reverted to pushing again. Watch her 1st round against the Japanese girl who had matchpoints against her, to see how she plays when her opponent can also push.

 

[Brian11785]

Her game is all about pushing the ball back again and again until her opponent either makes an error or can't keep up after the 20th ball, at which point she'll go DTL for an easy winner. As far away from 1st strike tennis as you'll get. Last year this time. she tried playing attacking tennis and failed and reverted to pushing again. Watch her 1st round against the Japanese girl who had matchpoints against her, to see how she plays when her opponent can also push.

You are forgetting the improved serve, all those return winners, those backhand drop shots out of nowhere, those crazy angles.

Even if I accepted your minimizing of Kerber's play in this tournament, you are describing textbook counterpunching. Without counterpunchers, you'd have a lot of two point rallies. (In the WTA, that would be....serve, return, error......serve, return, forehand, error....) If this "first strike vs. first strike tennis" is your idea of entertaining, then I don't know what to tell you. Watch her match against Aga in Stanford last year if you want to see her against another (your classification, not mine) pusher. It was widely considered one of the best matches of the year.

I watched every one of her matches in this tournament aside from one random one second or third round. Doi is no pusher. Have you seen that forehand.........dammmmn.....

The closest to pushing you saw from her this tournament was against Konta. The Brit was going for way too much, so in that case, sitting back and letting her spray forehand after forehand is the smart strategy.