Jackson Browne had a song in the 70′s called “The Pretenders” and it opened with the stanza:

I’m going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I’ll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again
Amen

The Pretenders Are Gone and The Business End Begins

From Jayita Belcourt via Ziggy from Poland

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By Jayita Belcourt

It is often said that the true measure of a person is seen not where they stand at times of comfort, but rather, how they stand in the face of adversity.

For former WTA # 1, Serena William competing at her 46th Grand slam event, times were surely testing. Battling an ankle injury after rolling it earlier this year in the Brisbane Open, the 30 year came into the match with high hopes but was soon left contemplating her performance after being crushed in two straight sets by Russian WTA ranked #56, Ekaterina Makarova 6-2, 6-3.

Serena stunned by Russian lefty

Before the tournament, you were touting Monfils after he beat Nadal in a warmup tournament to Aussie O. And then Gael goes down to Kukushkin. You will never learn never to put your money on players like Monfils or Gasquet or Murray in slams.

Then you built up the Federer-Tomic match, saying you thought it would be a Battle Royale (I said right away it was a straight set match for Fed).

Ooh · The Truth Hurts

By Jayita Belcourt

Tomic and Federer’s most recent encounter was during the Davis Cup in September last year. Federer edged the match away to secure a four sets victory 6-2, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. Although the young Australian was able to steal a set from the Swiss after some inspiring play, the end result did not seem questionable. It was always Roger’s match.

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By Jayita Belcourt

It is simply amazing what can change over time. Ravaged by injury leading up to the Australian Open and unable to play much tennis, 30 year old Hewitt says his tennis career was unknown.

“A couple of months ago, I didn’t know if I’d be able to play,” he said.

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Throughout the first set last night against Lleyton Hewitt, Milos Raonic looked like the Second Coming of Pete Sampras. His first serve was exploding into service boxes at 141 mph, usually out of the reach of Hewitt’s racket and strike zone. His second serve air-bombed in at 120+. Patrick McEnroe was raving about Raonic, the easy power of his shots, his ability to finish points at net, and his quick little steps on his footwork.

David Slays Goliath

I like Dolgo. He’s fun to watch, obscenely talented and has great hands. But I hear Scoop talking about him contending for a slam and not only has it not happened, I just don’t see it happening. Dolgo has a lot of firepower, but his first serve percentage last night was in the 40′s (45% to be exact, he did serve 22 aces) and you can’t be a big-time player when you slice your forehand return of serve the majority of times.

Dolgo--A Lightweight Trying to Become A Heavyweight

Bernard Tomic has established himself at this Australian Open as the standout young prospect in tennis, separating himself from Dimitrov and Harrison (Raonic is a couple of years older than BT).

His five set wins over Fernando Verdasco and Alexander Dolgopolov were nothing short of sensational. Tomic uses a unique style which is bolstered by intelligence, variety, defense, offense, whatever it takes. Darren Cahill says Tomic has his own way of playing the game and also an independent view of how it should be played.

Is this Tomic's Australian Open?

I was asked to pen an article about the “Is Marcelo Rios the best player to never win a major” topic. Here is the attempt to prove the very debatable point… It’s at British journalist Mark Hodkinson’s brand new site www.thetennisspace.com, which I highly recomment… http://www.thetennisspace.com/opinion/the-greatest-without-a-slam-its-not-andy-murray/

The author of a new book on Marcelo Rios argues that the Chilean, not Andy Murray, is the greatest player without a grand slam title.

Marat Safin, a former US Open and Australian Open champion, tells me how the Chilean had the talent to win “ten grand slams”. Thomas Johansson, a former winner of the Australian Open, says of Rios, “he could make you feel like it was the first time you were standing on a tennis court, so I hated to play him. You could get killed by him easily, one and one or something like that, and you could have played a good match.”

Best talent to never win a slam? It's Rios