It turned out to be a wonderful Saturday as Victoria Azarenka confirmed her place as the new World Number 1 in Women's Tennis, beating Maria Sharapova in remarkably straight-forward fashion to also claim the Australian Open title.
It was wonderful as Azarenka had formed part of the staking plan at the beginning of the tournament and brought in the prize 7.00.
To make me feel even better, she also managed to secure the win in straight sets, meaning we picked up an additional 2 units of profit for the daily picks with one more match to go.
Novak Djokovic v Rafael Nadal: This was the Final that everyone was looking forward to see as Rafael Nadal tries to put a disappointing 2011 behind him where he lost all 6 matches against Novak Djokovic, all coming in Finals.
Nadal is also looking to avoid a bit of negative history rather than a lot of the positive history he has made in his career as he could be the first player to lose three consecutive Grand Slam Finals in the Open Era I believe.
So how will this Final go tomorrow? Personally I think Novak Djokovic has an excellent chance to win this match and that is mainly down to one shot- the backhand down the line to the Nadal backhand was the shot that won him those matches last season, and we have already seen Tomas Berdych and Roger Federer have success to a lesser extent in this tournament.
The bottom line is Djokovic plays that shot with so much consistency and is is able to change the direction of the ball so well in rallies that it keeps Nadal a little off-balance when playing against him.
The Nadal serve also means he has to win more rallies than someone like Federer does when he plays Djokovic, and I think that is what gives the World Number 1 a definite edge as his consistency and shot-making ability off the backhand hurt Nadal effectively.
The intangibles here are how fit Djokovic is after really having a couple of extremely tough matches- however, I think the day and half rest will be enough for him to come out firing in this one and I do think he will be too good for the Spaniard again.
I have already picked Djokovic as my outright choice to win this tournament, so, like yesterday, I won't be loading any more money on him in the match markets.
Instead, I will look for the World Number 1 to win this match in 4 sets, a number of sets it took him to complete the job at Wimbledon and at the US Open against Nadal. It is also telling that Nadal won a set in 4 of their 6 meetings last season, suggesting he takes advantage when Djokovic slips from his level a little bit, but the Serbian is took good for the most part.
As I did yesterday, I am going to try and cover this Final live with my thoughts as the match progresses on this blog tomorrow. I really enjoyed doing it for the Women's Final, and there seemed to be enough people viewing to make it at least worth my while too.
Unlike yesterday, I will hopefully begin the thread before the match starts and cover right through to the lifting of the trophy.
Thanks for the support and I hope a few of you will join me in the morning for another fascinating clash between the two best players in the World... I will post a link on Twitter to the thread for the live updates.
MY PICK: Novak Djokovic win 3-1 in sets @ 4.33 Sporting Bet (1 Unit)
Australian Open Update: 21-15, + 16.76 Units
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