He’d been injured earlier in the tournament, so if he was treated before the match and made some noises about not being sure he could play, for example - or if he took an injury timeout during the match he lost… who knows. The investigation doesn’t seem to have turned up anything so far in terms of what actually happened.
Here’s an article about it.
Is it just me, or does the women’s game seem significantly more lackluster than the men’s game these days? Even in the latest rounds, unforced errors/winners ratio in the women’s game seems significantly higher than in the men’s game, and the rallies don’t seem as exciting (probably because they seem to end with unforced errors more often than not!). To top it all off, I don’t think we’ve had an exciting women’s grand slam final in quite some time, while the men’s side has (even straight set victories have usually been decent contests).
Am I crazy here? Or chauvinist? I do recall that the era when the Williams sisters were ranked 1 & 2 seemed a lot more thrilling than now (with the paradoxical exception of when they actually played against each other). Am I imagining things?
Earlier in the Open, the Aussie papers were opining that the men’s tennis matches were so boring (nobody was going past 3 sets) that they should offer the women a larger share of the prize money vs. the men. Then came Week 2.
I know I was sorely disappointed with the marquis matches namely Sharapova v. Henin and Williams v. Jankovic. But normally I’d prefer to watch women’s tennis vs. watching the “sluggers” like Roddick turn the game into a serving duel.
Personally, I think it may be time to make women play best of 5. A lot of players take a bit of time to get warmed up. Once they hit their stride and the match picks up, the match is over.
There’s not a player on the tour who’d want to do it. The last match of the year-end championships used to be five sets - I saw that one year. Graf beat Hingis 6-0 in the fifth set, Hingis was clearly dead on her feet.
I do get bored by the women’s matches sometimes. Even for the good players, the errors seem to get out of control. I like the Williamses and Henin, but I find Sharapova exceptionally dull.
Womens matches to me are definitely less exciting- espcially early rounds where matches under an hour aren’t uncommon. The best about the womens game is though is that you have no idea who is going to win a given tournament- any of the seeds usually have a chance.
Personally, I watch the men’s tour for tennis and the women’s game to gawk at hot chicks. The women’s game looks like it’s in slow motion compared to the men. And I agree the women’s game is rife with unforced errors; the ratio of winners:unforced is way higher on the men’s tour.
As for the men’s tour being an ace-fest, the big servers usually get knocked off in the first round like Roddick, so that’s hardly a fair criticism. I’d go so far as to say that in this decade, more women champions won from aces than men. (The Williams sisters serve up more aces than Federer.)
Yeah, one thing going for the this women’s final is that both finalists are smokin’ fine; Ivanovic is probably the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in the top 10. About the men’s game, I’m glad that Federer’s not an ace-man like Sampras; I used to always root against Pete, Phillopoussis, and those guys because they were so boring to watch. It’s much better now; Fed is usually incredibly graceful, and Nadal’s fiery game reminds me of Agassi. I also hope we see more of this Tsonga kid in the future. I like baseline rallies as much as the next guy, but that threat of a drop volley just makes the game so much more fun to watch.
An entertaining men’s final. And a deserved winner.
Unlike the men’s side in Australia this year, where the #3 was facing an unseeded? 
Yep. They both had the jitters early, but Tsonga recovered enough to take the first set. For some reason, he just seemed to get really wild during the 2nd and 3rd sets, missing a bunch of short forehand balls with plenty of time to set up. And I think he only hit one or two drop volleys of the many that he tried- a total reversal of his match against Nadal.
Djokovic, on the other hand, really impressed me with his hustle and reflexes; he got to smashed balls that most players would just let go and flung it back to an oft-erring Tsonga. The 4th set was great, and despite being somewhat plagued by errors, it was also filled with genius.
I still think that Tsonga choked a little, but Djokovic was mostly responsible for seizing the victory. The unseeded one will be back at the tail end of future majors, I’m pretty sure.