The Women’s Singles Finals will be contested between World No. 1, defending Champion Serena Williams and comeback queen Justine Henin. iSporter Chirag Mansukhani previews the 2010 Australian Open Womens Finals.
Serena had a tough time warding off Li Na of China in the semi-finals winning 7-6, 4-7, 6-1. Li Na managed to frustrate Serena for most of the match by simply not willing to give up. It seemed she produced her best tennis every time she was down, not allowing the defending Women’s Champion to sustain any lead or stamp her authority over the match.
The first set was closely contested and eventually was taken by Serena in the breaker 7-4. The second set saw Serena with four match points, but each time Li Na seemed to pull a new trick out of the bag saving all of the match points and sending the second set into another tiebreak. It was here that the defending Champion simply rose to the challenge and took her game to another level going out to a 6-1 lead giving herself 5 more match points. However, this time she only needed one of them as she served an ace to seal the victory and another Australian Open semi final.
In the other semi final Justine Henin took just 51 minutes to dispatch Zheng Jie 6-1, 6-0 simply annihilating her opponent to storm into the finals. Henin hit 23 winners in the match and it was a much more solid performance as compared to her previous matches this probably being her easiest match in the tournament.
A point to note is that Serena has never won this title in an evenly dated year. However, that should do little to worry her psyche and Serena will be looking to set that record straight with a win to start of 2010.
The Final is all set to be a cracker jack of a match with Serena and Henin meeting for the first time in a Grand Slam Final. Serena would probably go into this match having a slight edge over her opponent being that she is the Current World No.1 and Defending Champion but no one should write off Henin as the story of her amazing comeback continues.
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