AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2012

After 5 hours and 53 minutes, Novak Djokovic was crowned the Australian Open champion. Once again he came out on top of Rafael Nadal, who did not make the win easy. Djokovic beat Nadal, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(5) and 7-5.

This match was far from flawless from either player. Each player had more unforced errors than winners. Nadal had 44 winners and Djokovic had 57. The big number was the unforced errors, Djokovic had 69 and Nadal had 71. Nadal committed one unforced error in the fifth set that changed the outcome of the match.

After Nadal fought back from being down in the fourth set, 3-4 and 0-40 on his serve, he seemed to be taking control of the fifth set. Djokovic looked a bit gassed and Nadal started to press on his neck. With the set at 4-2 Nadal and Djokovic serving, Nadal appeared that he was going to break Djokovic's serve to take a commanding 5-2 lead.  During the rally, that would of put Nadal up 15-40, Djokovic hit a ball to Nadal's backhand. Nadal had a lot of space to Djokovic's left to hit a clean passing shot. Nadal's passing shot appeared to have bounced barely in but after Djokovic challenged, the shot was clearly out. Game is tied at 30 and Djokovic could hear the wind going out of Nadal's sails.

This match will be talked about in the same conversation as Nadal-Federer, 2008 Wimbledon and Borg-McEnroe, 1980 Wimbledon.

Djokovic is on a roll right now. He has won four of the last five Grand Slam Tournaments. The only loss in that stretch is to Federer at last year's French Open.

Hopefully these two guys enter the BNP Parabas Tournament at Indian Wells in March, since we have tickets to the weekends festivities. We would love to see these two go at it again.