Defending Champion VS People's Champion

Oh boy, what excitement! For the past 1hr 39 mins, Roger Federer was battling Andre Agassi in the Rod Laver Arena. Federer being the defending Australian Open champion, and of course Agassi the 4-times Australian Open champion.

Sheesh, I was on the edge of my armchair when those two guys were playing. Magnificent rallies and precise aces (22 in total by Federer, 1 by Agassi). Another insect encounter with Federer, which looked like a grasshopper to me hehe. Sad to say Agassi got dominated more or less by Federer with a score of 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Seemed to me that Agassi was out of gas or something. He didn't seem to be running down the balls as hard as Federer was, and that cost him a lot of points, and gave Federer a lot of winners too. A good rundown on statistics can be found here.

I'm biased. I was cheering for Agassi during the match because I wanted to see him at least win 2 sets off Federer, but then Federer was amazing today. During the most crucial moments, Federer seemed to always manage to pull off an ace and win the game.

Well I must say the match featured some high quality rallies between the two guys. Once again though, Federer has showed the world some amazing play. Looks like he had answered Agassi's previous question - 'Who's Roger?'...haha

The crowd was very pro-Agassi, me being one of them haha. Whenever Federer pulled off a beautiful winner the applause would sound rather muted, especially in comparison to Agassi's winners which weren't that spectacular. That's not to say Agassi didn't have any, there were maybe about 3 or 4 winners which had me clapping my hands in the comfort of my home, but Federer was just making magic with his racket.

At the end of the match, Jim Courier interviewed Federer, stating his 'ridiculous' statistics and asking a funny question. Questions are paraphrased as usual.

JC: You have a ridiculous record of not losing to a top 10 player for 24 consecutive occasions now. And that's not your only streak, you have won, inclusive of this match, 26 consecutive matches. You have broken a previous record of 25 matches, do you know whose that belonged to?

RF: *Grinning around and seeming to fumble with his words* Erm, is that you?

JC: Yes! You've broken my record! (Damn it I just wanna clobber you with this microphone now for doing that) --> My own ideas in his shoes haha

Well anyway, here's a little update on the upcoming matches...

Federer will face the Russian dark horse (IMO) Marat Safin in the semi-finals and we still have to wait till tomorrow to see whether my hopes of having Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt battle in the semis happen or not.

As for my ultimate biased hope? Roddick beating Federer in the finals :D Sorry Roger, maybe if you impart your skills to me I'll hope you win hehehe. Ok lah, chances are Federer will beat either Roddick or Hewitt if he beats Safin, but then again, I'm hoping, not predicting.