australian open - day 8

no wonder daghdatis can do so well... i would well too if i'm waking up next to this girl every day. :-) there's so many photos of them but i choose this simply because... *fill in the blank yourself*

once again, mauresmo surprised me. the reason why i expect vaidisova to win because mauresmo hasn't been in top form this year. she played only 1 tournament and lost in her first match for 2006 to ivanovic. seriously, i expect the up and coming krajicek to beat her in 3rd round but the weather wasn't really kind to krajicek then. vaidisova helped mauresmo by hitting those unforce error. in the first 2 games itself, she has 8 unforce errors - that's how mauresmo breaks her serve.

do you remember hinggis said she might do well because others do not know what to expect from her? could that be the result why she has been winning for 4 matches in a row and with astonishing result? maybe with the exception on today's match against stosur - she has been struggling with her own service game. deja vu? well, she can call dementieva "mate"!

while the federer/haas match managed to get me throwing everything in sight for a good 1 hour. i couldn't believe federer managed to have 66 winners and 58 unforced errors too. both figures are so close to each other. while haas's figure are both half of it.

my women's q-final prediction:

davenport/henin-hardene - davenport
sharapova/petrova - sharapova

provided that davenport is actually fully fit tomorrow! they met 9 times before and the last 5 matches has been favouring henin-hardene regardless of hard or clay court. while i support sharapova all the way... to the championship! :-P

while the men's:

santoro/nalbandian - nalbandian
ljubicic/baghdatis - ljubicic

santoro and nalbandian met only 3 times so far with santoro leading 2-1. santoro beat nalbandian before on both clay and hard court. but i fancy nalbandian on this one. though i expect the result to be in 4 sets or 5 but with the man they call "magician" (santoro lah) you never know what will happen. while the other pair - you know i love ljubicic. and that's the end of the story. :-) but the record shows otherwise! ljubicic lost to baghdatis last year in the round 64. then again, last year this time, ljubicic wasn't as good as he is now. so, i still fancy ljubicic chances.

day 8 complete result
day 9 schedule of play
day 9 tv schedule (for SEA only) - 8am until the last single's match on center court

tidbits:

So here we go. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to all the players about whom I have thought, and continue to think, positive thoughts. My only advice is, beware.

The much hyped Roddick/Maria Sharapova love match isn't what the tennis world is craving it to be. They are not together. Sorry, guys. While it makes a great story and gives the gossip magazines something to occupy their pages, they are both in Australia to win a tennis tournament, not engross themselves in some dramatic love affair.

justine gimelstob aussie open blog. it's a good read since he's also an active player on the tour (though he is out of aussie open now). go through his aussie open 2006 archive and you'll find it pretty informative.