Medals. And Stuff. Whatever.

Last post on Commonwealth Games tennis, I swear. I still loathe it with a fiery passion, but I should probably talk a little about how it turned out.

It was pretty much the Anastasia Rodionova show, which is not unsurprising, because she was pretty much the highest ranked player there. She won singles gold over Sania Mirza - in what was a surprisingly good match, though it wasn't particularly high quality - and then doubles gold with Sally Peers. She also got silver in the mixed doubles with Paul Hanley - they lost to a pair of Scottish players I have never heard of.

It's a pretty sad story for Commonwealth tennis when Australia is winning pretty much all the medals, which is essentially what happened. There were a few for India - I was, I confess, glad to see that Somdev Devvarman won gold for his nation (it at least made their ridiculous inclusion of tennis worthwhile) - and Sania Mirza, of course, won silver, but Australia won a ridiculous amount of medals in this event. Rodionova, as mentioned, won gold in the women's singles, and Sally Peers won bronze. Greg Jones and Matt Ebden (still a big Ebden fan, in case anyone was wondering - love his game) won silver and bronze. Then there was gold in the women's doubles, as well gold in the men's doubles. Oh, and also silver in the women's doubles.

Let's face it - Australia is not currently one of the world's tennis powerhouses. We have some good up and coming players, but we can't even get into the world group for Davis Cup. And yet we managed to win all this stuff. It's ludicrous.

Congratulations to all medallists. I mean that sincerely. I wouldn't want my ranting about the inclusion of the sport in the games to reflect badly on your achievements, of which you should be very proud. But seriously, Commonwealth Games? How about we stick to what we're good at next time?

Better Than Great Britain

Let's do a tennis feelgood story. Specifically, let's talk about the Australian Davis Cup team. I'm not normally extraordinarily nationalistic when it comes to tennis, but watching the progress of both our national teams this year has made me happy.

Sure, we may only be second tier, but the Australian Davis Cup team has not lost a rubber this year. Sure, we've been facing Chinese Taipei and Japan respectively, who are not exactly known to be tennis powerhouses, but not one single rubber. That seems to me to be pretty impressive. We have had the added advantage of playing at home, but nonetheless. Not one. That's awesome.

And it's not as if we've been a one man show, either. We've had Lleyton Hewitt do some heroics, we've had some from Carsten Ball, Peter Luczak, Bernard Tomic... for the first time in a long time, the Davis Cup team is beginning to attain something that almost looks like depth. And with players like Greg Jones and Nick Lindahl waiting in the wings and players like Jason Kubler and Luke Saville on the rise... the future is looking bright.

Not that I expect the Aussies to win Davis Cup anytime soon or anything. We have a ways to go before we're even in contention - if we get an unfriendly draw, then we'll have zero hopes of being the grown up group next year. But we're edging our way towards something a bit good - and certainly we're doing very respectably.

We're not going the way of Great Britain, that's for sure. Well done, boys, on a fabulous tie over the weekend. And if the world group playoff is in Australia, you can bet I will be there with bells on.

At Your Discretion

So... um...

The December Showdown is over. Lindahl and Dellacqua are through to the main draw of the Australian Open.

So what am I going to talk about now? December is a useless month, honestly. Do the players reeeeeeeally need an off season? Doesn't anyone ever think of the bloggers?

I shall have to do the best I can with what little I have, I suppose (less than two weeks until Abu Dhabi! THANK GOD.) So let's talk discretionary wildcards. The playoff may be over, but Tennis Australia has still got a few cards left to give out. I don't know how many are reserved for the reciprocal arrangements we have with the US and France, but I think (read: I read somewhere) that Tennis Oz has three wildcards leftover for the girls and four for the men. Or maybe the other way round.

So who do you card in?

Let's start with the boys. Tomic is a gimme, if you ask me. He played a night match on Rod Laver Arena last year and he's one of Australia's best hopes for the future. There is a wildcard with Bernard's name on it somewhere, mark my word. Peter Luczak will, I think, make it in my virtue of his ranking, so we don't need to worry about him. Chris Guccione is a possibility, but if he didn't play the play off, then maybe he's injured or something. Same with Marinko Matosevic.

That's a good criterion, actually - if you didn't play the play off, you obviously don't care. This leaves us with Tomic and two others. I think Tennis Australia will probably give on to Brydan Klein, though I don't think I would (mostly on the grounds that there was that sledging thing that one time and I'm not down with that). And maybe Greg Jones. Though I would give one to James Duckworth, because I think he's awesome.

Over to the girls, and you've got to pick Rogowska and Molik straight off. I'd be very surprised if they didn't carded in - Molik especially. If I were Craig Tiley, I'd also be giving a card to Yanina Wickmayer, even though she isn't Australian, but it looks like he's already said no. So if we;re just going off girls that played the playoff, I'd be looking in the direction of Wejnert and Peers. They definitely have something to offer.

The actual Open aside, I'll be looking to see who gets carded into the subsidiary events - your Brisbanes and Hobarts and Sydneys. We could get a good view of some interesting young talent...

Marquee Matches in Melbourne

At any other time of the year, I'm sure I would find the wildcard playoff for the Australian Open terribly, terribly dull and hardly worth paying attention to. It is a mark of how bored I am that I find it as fascinating as I do.

But fascinating I do find it, and there are some pretty intriguing match ups in there. The marquee match on the women's side would obviously have to be Alicia Molik and Jess Moore - if anyone, barring Casey Dellacqua, is going to topple Molik, I think Moore has got a good shot. I'll be watching keenly to see how that one goes. Dellacqua should, I think, have a slightly easier time of it with Shannon Golds, even though Golds is seeded above Moore. But then I haven't seen Golds play that much, so I'm basing it on pretty much nothing.

Sally Peers and Marija Mirkovic will also face off, but the match I'm really keen to see is Olivia Rogowska and Monika Wejnert. Wejnert - whom, as we all know, I think is pretty awesome - managed to topple Jelena Dokic here last year, and won the nation under-18s title last week. And Rogowska, top-seeded though she is, hasn't exactly been playing great guns... so there is some serious upset potential there, mark my words.

Over on the blokes side, the marquee match is Bernard Tomic and Greg Jones, no question. I like Tomic to win this tournament, but Jones has been playing awesomely this week - he hasn't dropped a match yet. And he's seeded above Tomic, and... yeah. If anyone's going to be Tomic, Jones is a good shot.

There's a match of pro tour stars in Matthew Ebden and John Millman (Ebden was the guy that took a match off Tomic); Kaden Hensel will play Matt Reid and second seed Nick Lindahl will face off against surprise package James Duckworth. The more I see of this kid (Duckworth, that is) the more I like him. He's only seventeen but he's got game - he's kind of a miniature Murray, in some ways. But awesome, and not annoying, like the Muzz. I look forward to seeing a lot more of him in the future...

Liv Scrapes In

I don't know how Olivia Rogowska got through to the quarters of the December showdown playing the way she did - she lost two matches, for heavens' sakes! - but she did. The rules of roubd robin have always been completely inscrutable to me. But I'm glad she did - actually, let me qualify that. If she lifts her game, I'll be glad she did. I don't think I'd like it if someone got through to the Aussie Open by playing not so well.

But even though she's the top seed, Liv is definitely not the favourite here. Whether it's Molik or Dellacqua I don't know, but you have to think that one of those two will take the wildcard for the girls. They've got the weight of experience, if nothing else.

...but I do admit to a preference to Monika Wejnert. She'll face Rogowska tomorrow and I think she has a real chance at winning. I would love to see her surprise everyone and make it through to the main draw. She has serious game.

The other top seed, Brydan Klein, has been eliminated. How Rogowska got through losing two matches and Klein didn't with the same win/loss record... yeah, it doesn't really make sense to me either. I suppose it must be some kind of game countback. But he's out, even though he did manage to win his last match. Bernard Tomic is through, however, seemingly back on his game after a weird loss yesterday, and he'll take on Greg Jones. That will be, I think, a pretty interesting match...

And James Duckworth made the cut as well. I'll be watching his progress keenly - he could be a dark horse and surprise everyone!

It's a rest day at the December showdown tomorrow (probably appropriate, given as it was forty-something degrees there yesterday). What on earth am I going to write about?