Tennis talk

Novak Djokovic, currently #3 in the world, won his first Grand Slam title last Sunday in Melbourne, beating the unseeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final.

This is an amazing result because it is the first time in 3 years that neither Roger Federer nor Rafael Nadal won, or made it to the final of, a Grand Slam tournament. The last time this happened was also in the Australian Open 2005, where Marat Safin saved a matchpoint in the semifinal against Federer and defeated Leyton Hewitt in the title match. If you are counting, that makes 11 consecutive Grand Slam titles that were won by either Federer or Nadal. Now that's an incredible statistic.

What I loved about this result is that it allowed Steffi Graf to hold on to one of her records. She currently holds the record (for both men and women) for consecutive Grand Slam final appearances with 13. If Roger made this final, it would've been his 11th in a row. She already lost her record of consecutive weeks at #1 to Federer so as much as I like Federer, I was hoping that he wouldn't manage to snatch another record from Steffi.

One other record people were hoping that Roger would achieve this year was winning the Golden Slam i.e. the Grand Slam of tennis - Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open - plus the Olympic Gold medal. By losing the AO final, that means he surely won't be able to achieve this feat this year (his next shot at this record would be four years from now). Of course, both Djokovic and Maria Sharapova, who won the women's title, both have a shot at winning the Golden Slam themselves. But I wouldn't put my money on that. Which gives me high hopes that after 2008, Steffi Graf will remain as the only player so far to have won the Golden Slam.