The WTAkeaways

[[I asked frequent Tennis.com and TW contributor Bobby C. to give us her thoughts on the women's singles event at the Australian Open. I'll be back later with some further thoughts on the men's final - PB]]

by Bobby Chintapalli

A lot can happen in two Grand Slam weeks, and who can remember it all? On the women’s side 127 players leave without a title, and who can remember them all. You remember some things and some people, of course, because of what happened or maybe your point of view. Here are some of my WTA takeaways.

We were right about Victoria Azarenka.

Before Petra Kvitova, there was Victoria Azarenka. Everyone said she’d win Grand Slam titles, rule atop the rankings and be the next big thing. Everyone knew it, or knew someone who did.

But it didn’t happen one year, and it didn’t happen the next. Meanwhile others her age, younger even, didn’t wait around. Caroline Wozniacki got hold of Number 1 and held on for dear life. Petra Kvitova went and won Wimbledon, and that was after losing a close semifinal to Serena Williams the year before. Azarenka was always around, but what does "around" get you? Until last June she hadn’t even reached a Slam semifinal.

Our own Pete Bodo picked her to win several big titles. Before the US Open in 2010 he wrote, “Azarenka, while certainly a work in progress, really seems to have all the goods when it comes to the contemporary women’s game.” But by Indian Wells in 2011 he had enough and refused to pick her as even a dark horse: “If you think I’m picking Victoria Azarenka again, you’re nuts. I’m sick of getting hosed by that diva.”

Who could blame him? We all wondered. Was it a matter of "when," or now more like "if?" Or were we wrong about her? Was it her fate to start Slams by dishing out bagels only to exit them in the quarters after nearly fainting or losing to Serena again?

This weekend she answered our questions without ifs, ands, or buts. She did that by redirecting the ball like it was nothing, hugging the baseline like her life depended on it, playing like it wasn’t a Slam final with Maria Sharapova on the other side of the net.

Whatever comes next – you know there will be bumps for the new Slamful No. 1 – we love her for what she did over the past fortnight in Melbourne: She proved us right.

Serena Williams isn’t invincible.

Let that sink in, because it’s a lot to absorb. The woman who once won big matches when she was rusty, unfit or injured can’t regularly win like that anymore, not against top players or Ekaterina Makarova. No offense to Makarova, whom Chris Evert believes can reach the Top 10 and win a Slam in the next few years, and who played world-beater tennis against Serena in the fourth round. It’s just that by the second week of a Slam, against players like Makarova, we expect Serena to pull out the magician-and-rabbit-style win. It could happen again – it probably will – but we can no longer expect the magic.

One of the most surprising things about Serena’s 6-2, 6-3 loss was the last game. It’s not that the best server in women’s tennis was broken. It’s that a player who likes to go down swinging went down pushing. Some called it “guiding,” but it was more, or rather less, than that. Was Serena tight? Tired? Hot? Did her ankle have something to do with it? Part of the answer lies in the fact that we’re asking the questions at all.

“It was just disastrous really,” said Serena after the match, but in the past that wouldn’t necessarily have kept her from winning.

Serena is the greatest player of the past decade, and her unparalleled power and skill still inspire awe.

But this tournament was another reminder that this too shall pass and that even at a Slam, if Serena looks like she might lose, sometimes she will.

The women aren’t saving the best for last.

Right now men’s tennis is in a different place – a better place – than women’s tennis. That, we know. Women’s tennis has its plus points: There’s the oft-cited depth and ever-marketable Maria Sharapova, Serena’s still playing and Venus Williams too (kind of), Petra Kvitova, Azarenka and other young players are becoming the consistent forces that their fans thought they could be and that the game needs.

But women’s tennis has seen better days, and nowhere is the disparity between tours more noticeable than in Slam finals. It was especially so Down Under. The top two ATP seeds, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, reached the final then put on a five-set, nearly-six-hour thriller.

By contrast the WTA final felt like a beatdown. Like other recent Slam finals, it was more a breakout performance by the winner than a compelling match between two top players. (None of the last four finals has gone three sets, for one thing.)

Over the past year WTA finals offered more variety based on quantity of players. The last four Slam finals were contested by seven different players and gave us four first-time Slam winners in Li Na, Kvitova, Sam Stosur and Azarenka. But the quality of the tennis wasn’t remarkable, not compared to ATP finals or quite a few early-round WTA matches.

When it comes to Slam finals the women must do what we know they can – bring it, and at the same time.

The kids are more than all right.

If the WTA Championships felt like the start of something, the Australian Open felt like the next step. For a few years now we’ve talked of younger players competing against veterans for a bigger piece of the WTA pie. Once again a “super-hungry” younger player, as agent John Tobias described all of them, scooped up the biggest piece.

Whatever you call the group comprising Kvitova, Azarenka, Wozniacki and Radwanska, this felt like their tournament. The four youngest players in the Top 10, all four made the quarterfinals, two made the semifinals and one took home the trophy.

And this feels like their time. It’s not just Wozniacki being No. 1 all those weeks, Kvitova winning Wimbledon, Radwanska reaching yet another Slam quarterfinal or, now, Azarenka winning the Australian Open. It’s a combination of all that.

This isn’t to disrespect the old guard or suggest they’re done. They’re not going anywhere, and they’ll do more winning this year. It’s only to say that from now on, when we get to the later rounds of tournaments and the business week of Slams, we won’t be surprised to see these younger players, and the likes of Sabine Lisicki and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova; no, we’ll expect to see them.

The new guard isn’t coming – the new guard is here.