The Australian Open women’s final deserves special mention. Victoria Azarenka won her second straight Aussie Open beating a gallant Li Na. In the three-set epic, play was stopped for two injury timeouts and a ten-minute break due to a fireworks display in the city. Organizers could have thought about this prior to the match starting. Li was desperately brave and will win another major soon, however, Azarenka is a deserving champion.
Novak Djokovic dominated the men’s final. The Serbian looks to be in another class and is going to be desperately hard to beat this year. Scotsman Andy Murray made a huge statement in the tournament but his final may have been run and won in the semifinals against his long time tormentor Roger Federer. Federer also looked good throughout the competition but is going to struggle against the top two this year no matter how mentally switched on he may be. Due credit goes out to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who looks a more disciplined and complete player under his new coach Roger Rasheed.
In the golf, Wood was good but Woods was even better. Englishman Chris Wood eagled the final hole in Qatar to win his first European Tour and finished one shot in front of Sergio Garcia and George Coetzee. In the US, it was the Tiger who showed he is ready to shake it up in 2013! I probably should have taken him to win the event, however, we shouldn’t be greedy – we will take our top four dividend as it never looked in doubt.
It was another great weekend of UFC fighting! Rampage Jackson ran into Brazilian Teixeira who won his 17th fight on the trot. I reckon it’s the end of the road for Rampage, an entertaining fighter who is unfortunately too old, fat and slow. Demetrious Johnson took on John Dodson and slugged it out to win the UFC flyweight title. These two guys looked more like jockeys than fighters but I wouldn’t go saying that to their faces. The reigning champion Mighty Mouse reclaimed his title in a controversial and very tough five rounder against the brave Magician. I look forward to a rematch even though I usually prefer my fighters to be big, muscle-bound behemoths.
It was nice to get three out of three in the football tips this weekend, especially considering we received some juicy dividends thanks to Division One teams Millwall and Leeds!
Good luck and good punting.
