Review: Australian Open 2016

[vaughany]

What are your likes and dislikes? Or your general review of the Australian Open?

Likes:
Zhang's story/upset over Halep.
Verdasco v Nadal match.
Being there at RLA for Hewitt's last victory.
Djokovic first two sets v Federer in the semi, those sets he was in unbeatable beast mode they were.
Raonic knocking the door down getting close to a Slam final spot.
A high quality Womens finals with Kerber an outsider winning.
Dasha Gavrilova personality and rise to fame.
Tomic playing ok, no tank or incidents.
Festival site for fans and the addition of extra shade canopies on outside courts.

Dislikes:
Channel 7- utter disgrace to put it simply as others on here have all noticed too.
Cost of tickets- spiked too high this year.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

 

[Flameboy]

I'll keep mine short and sweet.

Highlight:
- Woman's Final. Best I've ever seen.

Lowlight:
- Kyrgios. Grow up.

 

[GreekLunatic]

Highlight kerber win lowlight Hamish Bruce And basil

 

[BobbyMorri]

Highlight
Chase the Ace
Great Facilities with shade. u dont know how good we have it here.
Kerber and everything about her.
Williams can be a good loser when she knows she was beaten by a better player, such as on Saturday.
gavrilova v mladenovic was probably the best match i personally watched at the open this year. new "aussie" star.
Noles first 2 sets v Federer.
Fed can still school people like Goffin and Berdych
Verdasco
Schedule which i think they got right most days
Hingis Mirza. Schooling the world in doubles one at a time
all the double finals were good actually.

Lowlight
Anderson and Karlovic going out in the first round
Doubles finals and the lack of a presentation or crowd atmosphere. i know it is the same every year and every slam, but still.
Wet Weather
Nadal
Women seeds. a lot have excuses(Halep), but a lot dont. more talking about the 16-32 range here.
Cornet. Win Hobart, lose to a qualifier. Sort it out girl.
Watching Murray last night was painful.
No epic Stan v Nole match.

6.5/10 overall.

Lack of long 5 or 3 set matches was disappointing, especially near the end. Those which did make the distance were ruined by injury. one exception was the womens final. it is a rare occurrence where i dont have to defend the women about equal pay with the men. not this year, thanks to Kerber and Willams(and lesser extent, Murray)

 

[Redline]

The Kerber win was probably my highlight on TV.

Live I enjoyed Robredo winning in five sets as well as the Muller / Fognini game.

The shade on the outside courts were good but court 2 and 3 are a huge problem and my biggest issue with the venue. It might be time to bulldoze them and put something more modern in.

 

[JamisonRun40]

Highlights
Angelique Kerber's outstanding play to win the women's final
Tomic's oncourt play, no dramas
Dasha except for her match where she just lost the plot
Stan's hilarious interview with Courier


Lowlights
Ch7 and everything about it except for Sam Smith and Kym Cljisters
Not getting to watch enough tennis due to work
Cross Promotion of tv shows

 

[PonsfordMagpie]

Highlights:

• Seeing Djokovic make history by equalling Roy Emerson's record of six Australian Open victories.
• Raonic's continual improvement after winning the Brisbane international.
• Attending the Murray v Raonic semi final! Very happy that it ended up being a good match despite Raonic's injury late in the match.
• The women's final was outstanding! The best I've seen since 2011 with Clijsters and Li Na.
• Zhang winning her first ever grand slam match and having a great run that got her to the quarter finals.
• Dasha's run was fun to watch but she'll mature and continue to improve hopefully.
• Watching Serena smash Sharapova for the 18th time.
• Apart from the first two days when it was over 30 degrees, the weather was cool for the Australian Open which made it pleasurable for those who attended.
• Great to see more shade for the outdoor courts as others have mentioned but I agree court 2 and 3 needs an area of shade as well.
• Lleyton Hewitt's farewell was well-handled and dignified despite it's somewhat over the top coverage leading into his final matches.
• Hewitt and Clijsters' inclusions into the commentary team was a breath of fresh air.
• The 7 Tennis App was fantastic especially when channel 7 wasn't broadcasting matches to my liking especially in the first week.

Lowlights:

• Channel 7's commentary has hit an all-time low with Bruce, Hamish and Basil being the standouts for being the most annoying commentators I've ever seen. None of them understand the sport except for two weeks of the year and add nothing to the coverage.
• There was too much coverage directed at the Australian players in the first week. I understand there's going to be a bias here but it was over the top this year.
• Ticket prices were too high.
• Nadal's early exit was disappointing and I barely saw Stan this year except for his loss to Raonic in the fourth round.
• Genie's early exit but she seems like she's on the way up after a poor 2015 so all hope is NOT lost
• Constant mispronunciation of players names from the usual suspects at channel 7! You know who I'm talking about!

 

[Hudu Gurusingha]

Likes:
- Going to the Open for the first time in person. The place is my version of heaven. It was like going to the royal show for the first time as a kid.
- Djokovic continuing on his march to GOAThood
- Kerber winning.
- Raonic coming into real prominence with a strong all round game.
- Dasha
- Federer getting blitzkrieged by Djokovic, shutting up the one eyed bandwagoners at Rod Laver
- Nadal v Verdasco. Great match.
- Coverage of qualies on youtube with no dickhead commentators
- Great chat here on bigfooty!

Dislikes:
- The holocaust that is the Channel 7 network
- Melbourne weather. Its s**t.
- Kyrgios
- Did I mention Channel 7?

 

[JamisonRun40]

Hudu

Agree with you about the great chat on BF, well done to all of us.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Likes:

1. The rise of some challengers to Novak- won't be ready for 1-2 years but the potential is there (e.g. Raonic, etc).
2. Novak winning!
3. Daria's run, showing tremendous fight.
4. A new womens champion is always good, as much as I have other favourites personally.
5. Hingis/Mirza
6. Facilities. Have to say the AO have really got this right.
7. No serve bots in the mens final.
8. Federer getting smashed in the semi and the whole crowd crying home!

Dislikes

1. Schedule on RLA. Too many useless Australians clogging up RLA sessions early, and the less said about Novak being shafted to MCA the better.
2. Womens seeds...do I need to say any more. Why have them when only Serena, Sharapova and a few others justified their seeds.
3. Lack of real classic matches. I guess the Nadal-Verdasco match was one, but I thought the first 2 sets were average.
4. Ash Williams...absolute campaigner!
5. Channel 7...absolutely horrible coverage...just get rid of Bruce jeez!
6. The Hewitt circle fest on Channel 7! So happy that he didn't last that long! 4 days was all I could cope with!

 

[JackNah_8]

Likes.
- Kerber v Williams final
- All the doubles finals were good.
- Raonic's performance
- Tomic making the effort and being calm on court
- the guy from KIA lol
- Novak defeating Federer
- Novak v Simon match
- Stan v Milos match


Dislikes
- Ch7 and their dud commentators (besides Kim, Sam Smith, g masters and hewitt)
- Nadal losing in Rd one
- Women's seeds losing early
- Lack of 5 set matches
- Bruce's speech during the women's final presentation
- ticket prices
- we didn't get to see the doubles' trophy presentations
- Bruce and his lame stats
- Some bad scheduling
- Fanatics
- Hewitt's long farewell coverage.
- Telstra and Ultra Tune ads

 

[JackNah_8]

Hudu

Agree with you about the great chat on BF, well done to all of us.

especially during the women's finals, usually that topic ends quick

 

[LukeParkerno1]

especially during the women's finals, usually that topic ends quick

Seconded. Fantastic to all on here, really livened up the tournament

 

[GreekLunatic]

Mkr ads too

 

[Hudu Gurusingha]

Likes:

1. The rise of some challengers to Novak- won't be ready for 1-2 years but the potential is there (e.g. Raonic, etc).
2. Novak winning!
3. Daria's run, showing tremendous fight.
4. A new womens champion is always good, as much as I have other favourites personally.
5. Hingis/Mirza
6. Facilities. Have to say the AO have really got this right.
7. No serve bots in the mens final.
8. Federer getting smashed in the semi and the whole crowd crying home!

Dislikes

1. Schedule on RLA. Too many useless Australians clogging up RLA sessions early, and the less said about Novak being shafted to MCA the better.
2. Womens seeds...do I need to say any more. Why have them when only Serena, Sharapova and a few others justified their seeds.
3. Lack of real classic matches. I guess the Nadal-Verdasco match was one, but I thought the first 2 sets were average.
4. Ash Williams...absolute campaigner!
5. Channel 7...absolutely horrible coverage...just get rid of Bruce jeez!
6. The Hewitt circle fest on Channel 7! So happy that he didn't last that long! 4 days was all I could cope with!

Really dont get your women's seeds argument. Its

 

[JackNah_8]

Really dont get your women's seeds argument. Its

The seeds were so bad this year. Seems like most of them are good for the smaller tournaments, eg Halep, Wozniacki,

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Really dont get your women's seeds argument. Its

The seeds should be justifying their rankings. You can understand an upset or two but not 3/4 of seeds losing in the first 2 rounds. For me personally there needs to be less points in the smaller tournaments.

 

[Hudu Gurusingha]

The seeds were so bad this year. Seems like most of them are good for the smaller tournaments, eg Halep, Wozniacki,

Yeah but extremely rarely are seeds not in line with rankings. Look at the FO last year. Rafa, billion time champion, king of clay still had a seed corresponding to his ranking. Did you expect them to just hand the likes of Azawanka and Screechapova higher rankings just cos? Uhuh.

 

[PonsfordMagpie]

Telstra and Ultra Tune ads

Great shoutout for the dislikes column!

Ultratune ads were terrible, whereas Telstra were tolerable enough but I understand that some people dislike Henri Leconte and got sick of seeing them after a while.