Brisbane Postscript

Speaking of ugly...

I barely managed to stay awake on the couch, but I watched the Tennis Channel airing of the women's Brisbane final.

The match itself, the broadcast commentary during the match, the trophy ceremony after, and the consensus in the discussions I've read around the net since that it was a great match and the WTA is lucky to have this rivalry renewed (an opinion completely unsupported by what I just witnessed) -- each of these deserves its own essay.

I doubt I'll get to any of them, but the one thing that registered more clearly than it has ever registered before:

They. Can't. Stand. Each other.

The highlights I posted earlier are deceptive. The winner of the match lost 8 consecutive games from 4-1 in the second second to 0-3 in the third in a total collapse more startling than the one in the men's final. It looked exactly like all the other WTA matches I could barely watch last year.

As for the Divorcée...

To lose a match to this particular opponent -- a psychodrama they both desperately wanted to win -- after serving for the match and failing, after holding two match points in the next game, one of which ended with her forehand burying a second-serve return sitter in the bottom of the net, and then to fight off three match points to level the tiebreak, only to double fault and hand her opponent another one, could give her nightmares for a long time.

In the middle of the first nightmare, she discovers Serena will be waiting for her in the second round of Sydney.

Maybe, just maybe, her luck has run out.

Let's she how she recovers, if she recovers at all.