Semifinals like yesterday full of errors and choking do nothing to help the cause. Certainly better matches than those are needed to do this. Wozniacki losing #1 and Kvitova and Azarenka coming along do help matters though.
Disagree. The semifinals last night were great -- full of high-drama, close, intense tennis. Of course there's going to be a lot of unforced errors...did you even happen to pay attention to who was playing? Kim Clijsters vs. Victoria Azarenka and Petra Kvitova vs. Maria Sharapova....four of the most aggressive players in the game. There were also many winners, mind you. That's just the type of tennis that is going to be produced from those types of match-ups. As the commentators mentioned last night, it's like watching Venus and Serena play each other early on in their careers when they relied solely on brute force to win their matches.
Certainly the WTA is on its way back to being a respectable organization. 3 of the top 4 girls made it to the semis (and the fourth member of the semis was the defending champ Clijsters so it's not like she was a shocker) and whoever wins tomorrow will not only have the number 1 ranking but a grand slam title to back that up with.
If Australia is any indication of the rest of the season then this is a GOOD thing for the WTA. Azarenka and Kvitova, two faces that are new to the top of womens' tennis, are really maturing and showing us that they deserve to be at the top, and at the same time the "veteran" in Maria Sharapova has been playing great tennis much of last year and is off to a great start this year as well.
I'm predicting, in 2012, a three-way rivalry for dominance between Azarenka, Kvitova, and Sharapova with players like Li Na and Caroline Wozniacki that will try to make a splash as well. Serena will most likely only show up for the slams, and given her inexplicable dreadful performances at the last two I have a big question mark next to her name in my head.
So that's just my two-cents, I'm so happy for Victoria having made her first grand slam final (and well deserved defeating Kim Clijsters!) and I'm even happier that Sharapova seems to have found her game once again.
I am a full proponent of Maria Sharapova's return to number 1 in 2012!
