Australian Open Tennis / John Harms / 03 February 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now

John Harms reflects on the 2010 Australian Open Finals.

So end those lazy, hazy days of summer.

The soda and pretzels and beer have been put away.

The calendar has ticked over to February, the Sunbeam iron is out again, the kids are naming their pencils and their exercise books, and the new year is clunking into motion.

And, the two weeks of the 2010 Australian Open are also over; the fortnight of the year when, somewhere in the house or the flat at the beach, a TV flickers in the background, broadcasting rallies that mark time like the old clock on grandpa's mantelpiece.

(It used to be the cricket, before 20/20 and Foxtel - now tennis is the mainstream go-to).

You might be anywhere in the house, but you can still hear the rise and fall of the crowd, the inane pre-serve call-out, the Groundhog-Day commentary, the grunt and squeak of the players, the thwack of the ball.

Not to forget the click of the computer mouse as Betfair punters trade, giggling to themselves at the value...until Federer plays Davydenko and I am caught in a late-afternoon meeting, and when I get back to the screen I panic and lay Federer at $7. He'd got me again, until Tsonga helped me trade back into a lovely position and I put the cue in the rack with a small profit showing.

It is a huge fortnight: 256 players setting out, just two to become champions, with every match having the potential to go on for hours.

We cook a barbie on Saturday night as the twilight mosquitoes arrive. Meanwhile, in the bowels of Melbourne Park, Serena Williams is climbing into a pair of white shorts that Matt Dunning or Stewie Dew could climb into, and in the next room Justine Henin tapes herself back together.

Williams crunches shots. She looks like she could belt out one of the great versions of Think, or blow a trumpet like James Morrison, or sing The Queen of the Night, but really her go is to hit the air out of tennis balls.

She does this for awhile: a cross-court forehand violates Kyoto and Copenhagen put together.

But then Henin, nearing oblivion at the end of the second, decides to go out like a gun-fighter. She finds her mark, not once, not twice, but eighteen out of nineteen times with a bizarre sequence of winners which has us all recalling a string of birdies on the golf course, or winning hands on the Blackjack table.

Did I ever tell you about the time I had four birdies in a row at Indooroopilly, and lipped out for the fifth at the 18th?

Confidence is such an impossible thing to bottle, and you certainly can't take the lid off it when you like.

Williams wished hers would return, and it did.

Slowly Henin's run was extinguished.

As luck would have it, we lit the barbecue again on Sunday night.

Less mosquitoes and another promising match-up: the young Scot and the champion. I didn't think the champion could be beaten, and neither did he, nor did Andy Murray himself.

They trade early service breaks, but Federer begins to flow. His backhand, which begins just as the ball strikes his opponent's racket, is a joy to watch. As it leaves the opponent's strings, his feet have already begun to track, perfectly as usual, and when they are grounded, his handsome head still, Federer strikes exquisite shots - over the top, or slice, as effective as they are aesthetically pleasing.

Yet it is his forehand and understanding of geometry and angles and trigonometry that secure the lead for this champion.

Murray tries hard...but he has grown up with Tim Henman and The Young Ones, with Basil Fawlty and a Scottish climate that sends you inside to drink single malt by the gil and watch Billy Connolly re-runs on Parkinson.

Murray suspects he has more to give than The Proclaimers, but he doesn't yet have their craft.

Federer, with his serve working, cruises to the lead. Murray grabs at his quad and it seems all over. But then, like Henin, he strikes out, and they play a terrific tie-breaker. Federer has insurance. He is two sets up. So the tension is a little artificial.

But it is still exciting.

Federer is too good.

As the curtain falls, and the montage of highlights shows that nostalgia for the life of the tournament is quick to take hold, I can't help wondering what sort of tennis this really is. Whether, just as the cricket calendar does to the world's most talented bowlers, games of tennis on this surface, constructed to hold you at the TV, serve these players well. I think of the retiring Baghdatis, so sad. I see Hewitt emerge from surgery. These fixtures are the equivalent of four hours with a personal trainer and you have to win seven of them in a week.

That's why Federer is so, so good.

Like Lord Lindsay over the hurdles in Chariots of Fire, Federer could play with a two-thirds full champagne flute in his left-hand and not spill a drop, which, as a champion couch-potato, is exactly how I tackled my last glass of slightly-chilled summer red.