Hit the Repeat button

I'll talk about the Women's Final first because it'll take the least time. Victoria Azarenka vs Maria Sharapova, it's a highly satisfying Final match-up. As much as I would prefer to see Caroline vs Stosur; Victoria and Maria have played the best through 6 matches and fully deserve the honour of fighting over the Title. I reallllllllllly want to see Victoria win this match; it'll be the start of a new career for her. I could easily see Victoria as a dominant World #1 if she could beat Maria.

Federer vs Nadal, well it could have been a Classic, a beatdown or something in-between. Federer got off to a great start, slowed down, forced a 1st set-tiebreak and won it; great start to the match but he needed to impose himself and settle in for the 2nd. He started off fantastic by breaking Nadal at love; at that moment, it looked like Federer had him. Then Roger served and lost the game at love. Sorry Roger, but you can't let that happen against Nadal; the break lead to Rafa running away with the 2nd set. The 3rd set was very close; it seemed like Rafa had Roger at the start but he held on; but did Rafa loose concentration? No. So the set progresses slowly, and evenly until Roger gets a chance at 3 - 3 and succeeds in breaking Nadal. Again, another chance to take the lead and win a set easily by defending your serve. Roger let Rafa break him back... again; this is why Roger hasn't won a Slam in 2 years, he gets nervous when serving at key junctures in the match against players like Nadal and Djokovic. Rafa went on to win the 3rd set Tiebreak. Normally at that point, I'd consider the match as good as over but for some reason I felt like Roger could play a good 4th and force it to 5. But again, in the tight moments of the set; Nadal was able to break Roger. Federer nearly broken him back; missing a forehand winner by an inch or 2 but Nadal held on. I dunno where Roger's mindset is going to be after the defeat; he didn't play terribly and he was right there but again and again Nadal keeps coming out on top in close Slam matches.

Djokovic vs Murray, I considered skipping this match but decided Murray had a decent shot so I got up at 5am to watch. And man, I don't regret it; I actually had to miss a class that started at 9:30 just to see the conclusion, that should give you an idea of the length and quality of this match. Started off as usual, Murray played ok but Djo was better and won the set fairly easily. Well it was up to Andy whether or not he was going to make it into a match and he delivered, moving Djo from side to side with aggressive baseline shot-making. Andy won the 2nd set with the same scoreline as Djo in the first; he was already doing much better than last year's Final. The 3rd set was very close; Murray was pummeling forehands and thumping serves but Djo continued to defend and return like a beast. The 3rd went to a tiebreak and surprisingly enough, Andy emerged as the victor. Now 2 sets up, Andy was going to need to dig deep to hold off the defending Champ; he didn't. Novak beat an ailing Murray silly in the 4th set (that's what I wanted Roger to do last night but whatever); so its down to a 5th and deciding set, Murray needs to recover fast to hold off the beastly #1. He couldn't; serving down 5 - 2 Murray needed to find another gear, he battled like a champ finding energy from seemingly nowhere. Andy broke Djokovic and tied the match at 5 - 5; now the momentum was firmly in Andy's hands and he went full steam into Djokovic's serve, getting several break point opportunities. But somehow Novak stopped Andy in his tracks and held to go up 6 - 5; at this point I was expecting a long 5th set but Novak had a different story in mind. Djokovic broke Murray; winning the 5th and final set 7 - 5. It was a fantastic match and clearly shows why its the Big 4 and not just the Big 3 (soon to be Big 5 when Del Po gets back to 100%). But with this win, Djokovic has basically guaranteed himself the Title as Nadal is even worse against Novak than Federer is against Nadal, which is where the Blog's Title comes from. The Australian Open has hit the Repeat button; Novak will repeat as Champion and its the third Slam in a row to feature Djokovic vs Nadal. I'm happy Nadal stays at 10 Slams but its heartbreaking to see Federer and Murray on the outside again.

Now that that's outta the way, I guess I'll discuss the weather. Its snowing quite hard right now; its always a pain to have to drive in the stuff. This morning I noticed my Aunt hadn't put out the garbage container on collection day; I assume she didn't do so because her driveway is covered with a sheet of very slippery ice and so it'd be a deadly journey to roll the container down to the bottom. Being the nice guy I am, I decided I'd take it down myself; its a rather heavy container with wheels so it turned out to be as treacherous as I thought. Me and the container ended up sliding down the driveway slowly as if we were on an escalator, so with my mission complete I trekked back up the driveway on the grassy side (of course covered by snow but no ice). Went to school, same old same old, we were suppose to have a lab at 2:30 but I checked my email and thankfully the Professor had cancelled due to the weather. So I went back to my car, it was covered with snow; after brushing it off I went home. Well now was the hard part, getting my Echo Hatchback up the steep driveway that was covered with a sheet of ice and now a good 15-25 cm of snow. So first I tried the easy option, try to drive up au naturale; got to the apex of the hill but lost traction and had to stop. Pulling into reverse, I tried to go back down as straight as possible but the car wouldn't cooperate and I ended up parallel with the street at the bottom of the driveway, facing the trash container... mocking me with its... greenness. So I got out of the car, grabbed the container's handle and dragged it up the hill, like a boss, then, grabbing a shovel from the garage, I cleared a path through the snow and went back to the car. Straightening it out, I lined up the shot and drove to the top of the driveway, yet somehow the car got stuck again before I could pull it into the garage (stinkin' car). After skating across some ice and shoveling some more snow, I finally got the car into the garage. Mission Accomplished! Slippy: "You did it! I was worried for a moment.", Peppy: "You're becoming more like your father.", Falco: "That was a close call Fox!"

Sorry, had to do it. Anyways, nothing else really new round here. I hope my Aunt will be up for the drive home tomorrow for the weekend, otherwise I'll be stuck here and that means my engagement this weekend will have to go on without me. Oh well, nothing more I can do. My adventures for today have already been deadly enough, don't wanna push my luck.

I'll talk with you guys later, either after the Women's Final or after both, depending on results. Remember to be safe this winter and leave the treacherous ice climbing to me.