Australian Open 2010: The Dream Final Awaits. The Judgment Day for Andy Murray

The ‘Warrior’ Reloaded, and the Smiling Assassin

Serena Williams and Justine Henin will compete in the finals of the Australian Open

The two women’s semifinal could not have offered a more striking contrast interspersed with erring similarity.

There was a player built strongly at 5’11”, a street fighter with a heavily potent serve. The one in the other match is lightly built at 5’7”, also a street fighter, but with a very susceptible serve in this tournament. One an established world No. 1 and defending champion of two of the four majors, the other a former No. 1 but currently unranked after her 18 months of sabbatical. One, heavily wrapped around her thighs and knees, and struggling for movement, and the other full of energy, moving as well as she has ever moved.

And there were also the fact that both were heavy favorites against their diminutive Chinese opponents in Li Na and Zheng Jie.

Yesterday, Musab pointed out Serena Williams’ 385th Warrior moment. Today, we witnessed her the no 386 against a player with heavy ground strokes on either side with good pace and versatility. And this becomes lethal against any player who is struggling with movement, even if the player is named Serena Williams.

But Serena likes to make a statement. She showed us that she not only has a boxer’s stomach, but some common sense too. After all, common sense is uncommon among common players, but she is anything but common! Throughout the match, she carried her drooping shoulders, cut down her trademark aggressive grunts during the rallies, and her roaring ways to pump herself up were absent. All she was interested in was to hold serves comfortably, and going for broke on the returns. Of course, nothing worked against Li Na who was holding her own comfortably as well.

But just as we felt that Serena was running out of time, the real Serena Williams was before us at the business end of the sets. The movement was back, serves were firing, and those intimidating fist pumps were back. Conserve energy at the start, leave it for the future, because this is not a luxury you have in this match.

Not surprisingly, she won both the tie-breakers quite convincingly to march towards the final step in her title defense. Oh, and there is a small matter of winning yet another doubles semi-final right after this grueling match, and a scheduled doubles final tomorrow.

Is Serena the greatest fighter on tennis court we have ever seen? Jimmy Connors may have other thoughts, but I don’t.

The other contest was the polar opposite. Justine Henin was in full flow, and demolished her opponent in a mere 51 minutes, losing a mere one game, with her usual infectious smile. And there she comes to her final step to complete a dream comeback like her compatriot.

Andy Murray: The Judgment Day Awaits

Andy Murray searching for his maiden Grand Slam

The only question I had before the first semifinal between Andy Murray and Marin Cilic was the latter’s fitness. Cilic has been tested in this tournament, heavily tested. The physical labor of spending twenty hours on the court after three five setters and a four setter is already humongous, and if you add the plethora of emotions involved in playing heavyweight players of the caliber of Stanislas Wawrinka, Juan Martin del Potro, and Andy Roddick to reach the first semifinals of a Slam, then the guy has to break down at some point—the mind, heart, and the legs.

Because apart from the small factor of fitness, I had given the elegant Croat every chance of upsetting the exciting Scot, even after watching his performance against Rafael Nadal. For one, he served much bigger than the Spaniard, and two, he returns much better as well.

But Murray’s game relies as much on tactics as it does on ground strokes. He came in with a fixed game plan, and executed it perfectly. Brad Gilbert in the commentary box noted that Andre Agassi’s vision always was to cramp out his opponent and his game was built around that. Murray’s vision today was to add as many miles as possible on those already worked out legs of his opponent, and did exactly that.

He took the blows from the towering Croat early on in the set, but made sure to add as many miles on those tired legs as he possibly could. His confidence grew and Cilic’s movement declined as Murray dominated the next three sets after losing his only set of the tournament. The world No. 14 still showed more than enough heart, and brains, but those legs really gave away.

Meanwhile, Murray started performing like a circus artist combining deft touch at the net, hitting acute angles and running all around the court and retrieving anything thrown at him, especially the penultimate point of the match with a spectacular around the net-post winner which astonished even himself.

In the end, Murray clearly looked the fitter player after having spent less than half the time on court than his opponent, and finds himself in his second major final. His possible opponent will be the same as during his first, and the pressure will be enormous. This is the surface of his choice, and that possible opponent has looked vulnerable so far. But he has also been at this stage 21 times before in his career, winning it on 15 occasions, so he knows more than anybody else on how to dig deep and win matches.

Regardless, Murray has reasons to celebrate. He has clearly improved this year, and has every chance to believe that he can lift up his maiden Grand Slam trophy.