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Never mind nationalities, I'm just happy that two players who might be called journeymen have made the final. After seeing so many teens come in and burn out before they're 25 (e.g. Vaidisova - she's getting married next month - wishing her all the best!), it's good to see two women above 25 make the final.

That's not quite fair, I suppose - the Belgians and the Williams are between 27 and 30 - but they made their mark well before they were 25. So it feels different, more like real life. (Of course, in real life, life begins at 30, or 40, or 50, depending on where you want to move the goalposts to.)

But it's nice to have grinders rather than grunters, women rather than girls, 'unknowns' (if you only follow singles tennis at slams) rather than knowns, late bloomers rather than young guns... you know what I mean.

Hopefully neither will suffer from nerves on Saturday. After all, this isn't the first Grand Slam final for either of them. For Francesca Schiavone (who incidentally was born six days after Venus) it's the second - she reached the French Open doubles final in 2008 partnering an Australian.

Yeah, Casey Dellacqua was the last Aussie to reach a French Open senior final. (Unless you really want to count Pat Cash reaching the legends u45 men's doubles final last year. But I said senior, not Senior, so it's Dellacqua.)

As for Sam Stosur, this is actually her ninth Grand Slam final. She's won titles at every Grand Slam event - two women's doubles titles (US 2005, French 2006) & 2 mixed doubles (Australian 2005, Wimbledon 2008) - and reached women's doubles finals four other times.

While we kinda expect Saturday to be Schiavone's swansong and for the tough Italian to retire gracefully into the sunset, revered by Italians and the tennis profession (esp for her Fed Cup wins), we have loftier expectations for Stosur.

I dunno when was the last time someone won their first singles Slam at over 25 - surely not as far back as Gomez back in 1990 - but it's nice to see someone get to this stage late for a change. I don't know if she can reach #1, but women's tennis needs someone who can take down any of the Williams-Belgian quartet even on their good days.

In other words, women's tennis needs Sam Stosur. And now, we've finally got her.

Fair play to both of them. Schiavone has done incredibly well to get this far but i can't see her beating Stosur. The Aussie has beaten 3 former world number ones enroute to the final and has been playing some great tennis.

However, most of the matches this year have been quite poor i must admit. One feels that the women's game needs some sort of change to make most of the public interested in it again.

Changes I'd like to see to women's tennis
- matches in the second week of a slam are best of five instead of best of three
- point penalties for grunting
- point penalties for taking too long between points (also for men)
- towels only given to players during changeovers (also for men)
- more female players wearing shorts instead of skirts

On a different note, I was curious about the answer to the question I asked in my previous post (clearly I have no life) :

Q: How many women have won their first Grand Slam singles title after the age of 25?

A: I could be wrong here, since I went back manually to check the record, but the answer seems to be just three since the Open Era began in 1968.


Amélie Mauresmo (2006 Australian) 26 years, 6 months, 23 days
Jana Novotna (1998 Wimbledon) 29 years, 9 months, 2 days
Kerry Melville Reid (Jan 1977 Australian) 29 years, 5 months, 2 days

(There are more names if you go further back, like Nancy Richey, but someone else can go back and compile the full list.)

This answer will be four in 48 hours, since on Saturday the ages of the finalists will be
Sam Stosur 26 years, 2 months, 6 days
Francesca Schiavone: 29 years, 11 months, 13 days

I would have liked to have checked how many women reached their first Slam final after 25, but I didnt have the list of runner ups. The only one I could remember was Novotna's opponent in that 'Battle of the Oldies' Wimbledon 1998 final, Nathalie Tauziat, who was 30 years, 8 months, 17 days.

Incidentally, eight days after Tauziat reached the Wimbledon final, her cousin Didier Deschamps captained the French national team to victory in the World Cup. Quelle famille!

Jonathan, what about their previous meetings and head-to-head record? Any info?

#4 - the WTA site has a head-to-head compare thingy for any two players. Unfortunately, it only shows results for singles matches and excludes exhibition matches, but I suppose that's what you want here.



Sam & Fran have met five times in official singles matches between 2005 and 2009. Fran only won the first time, in 2005 on a hard court. Since then Sam has won, twice on hard courts, twice on clay.

I find it difficult to believe that they haven't met more often in doubles, though.

Addendum to #3



The WTA site says "If Schiavone wins, she'll be the second oldest first-time Grand Slam champion after Ann Jones, who was 30 years 9 months when she won Wimbledon in 1969"

This isn't true - the UK's Ann Haydon Jones won the French Open in 1961 (at age 23) and 1966. Those were before the Open Era began, but still count as Grand Slam titles.

In other words, if Francesca wins, she will be the oldest first-time ladies grand slam winner, at least in the Open Era (and possibly all-time).

I think we are going to see a lot of Sam over the next few years. I hope so anyway !

A refreshing good sport. No grunting...no tantrums... A reminder of Aussie's golden tennis days when the players were fun, irreverent with little ego, no grunting and let their racquets do the talking.

Sam will get so much confidence from thi tourney. She clearly has the skills and mind. Go Sam !!!!

"But it's nice to have grinders rather than grunters"

Er, Schiavone is a grunter...

I have been following SS for the last two years and i think the key part about her game is her serve, clearly better honed due to her pedigree in doubles. As one of the commentators said against JJ, it is like a mans in terms of power accuracy and also spin with the second serve. This means it is far easier for her plough through lesser players and also the smaller players.

However FS kind of came out of nowhere but as an above poster said she has an impeccable davis cup record and having watched a few of her matches she is actually a very good clay court player. However she has had a rather easy run to the final and i can't help but think that if she had had the same run to the final stosur had that she would have exited at the quarter finals rather than making the final. Obviously though, you can only beat what is in front of you so she does deserve this final.

But for me this is going to be the start of a lot of big things for stosur in singles as she has the game to adapt to all surfaces with a very nice slice backhand.

But, for today! Roll on the mens semis although i think they could potentially also be one sided with nadal thrashing meltzer and soderling thrashing berdych but we shall have to see. I tipped sod to win it this year and even if he doesn't i hope (providing results go as i predict) he can have an epic final with nadal :D.

#8 I stand corrected :-)

Addendum to #3, #6 : I asked the WTA about why Ann Jones was considered the oldest debut Slam winner in the Open Era when she'd already won a Slam before the Open Era. They replied I 'Yes, the stats are all regarding the Open Era, which is why the 1961 Grand Slam doesn't count'.

They also pointed me to the (actually quite good) match notes for the final here:


On Page 1 it happily tells you that there have been five debut winners over Stosur's age: Ann Jones, Jana Novotna, Kerry Melville-Reid, Amelie Mauresmo, Margaret Court... so Schiavone/Stosur can become the 2nd/6th oldest debut winner.

Margaret Court? They say that Margaret Court is currently the fifth oldest debut winner coz she was 26 years old when she won the 1969 Australian Open? What about the THIRTEEN slams she won before 1968? Good grief... there is no way one can compare Jones or Court as debut finalists/winners in the same way Stosur and Schiavone are.

Here's how things stand then, for debut winners - with asterisks taken from elsewhere in the media notes - and Saturday's finalists slotted in for comparison.

Ann Jones** (GBR) 30 years, 8 months, 28 days - 1969 Wimbledon
(Francesca Schiavone (ITA) 29 years, 11 months, 14 days)
Jana Novotna (CZE) 29 years, 9 months, 3 days - 1998 Wimbledon
Kerry Melville-Reid (AUS) 29 years, 5 months, 3 days - 1976 Australian Open
Amélie Mauresmo (FRA) 26 years, 6 months, 24 days - 2006 Australian Open
Margaret Court* (AUS) 26 years, 6 months, 11 days - 1969 Australian Open
(Samantha Stosur (AUS) 26 years, 2 months, 7 days)

* Court won her first Grand Slam title at 1960 Australian Championships aged 17 years, six months, and followed with 12 more titles between 1960 and 1966
** Jones won two pre-Open Era Grand Slam titles: her first at 1961 French Championships, aged 22 years, eight months and a second at the French again in 1966

On another nitpicky note, whoever made that document does not list the 1968 French Open final in the table on page 1 for 'Open Era: Both players making Grand Slam final debut'. So much for consistency...

Not that this detracts from anyone's achievements in any way, of course.

PS: If Schiavone does beat Stosur tomorrow, I'll eat my cat. As I cannot possibly eat my cat, Stosur will win tomorrow. So there.

PS: I did say that the media notes were rather good, didn't I? Here's a gem - the projected rankings for next week, with the pre-French-Open rankings in ().

1 (1) Serena Williams (USA)
2 (2) Venus Williams (USA)
3 (3) Caroline Wozniacki (DEN)
4 (4) Jelena Jankovic (SRB)
5 (5) Elena Dementieva (RUS)
6 Winner of Final: (7) Samantha Stosur (AUS) / (17) Francesca Schiavone (ITA)
7 Runner-Up: (7) Samantha Stosur (AUS) or (17) Francesca Schiavone (ITA)
8 (8) Agnieszka Radwanska (POL)
9 (10) Kim Clijsters (BEL)
10 (15) Flavia Pennetta (ITA)
11 (12) Li Na (CHN)
12 (14) Marion Bartoli (FRA)
13 (20) Nadia Petrova (RUS)
14 (18) Shahar Peer (ISR)
15 (11) Victoria Azarenka (BLR)
16 (16) Yanina Wickmayer (BEL)
17 (13) Maria Sharapova (RUS)
18 (23) Justine Henin (BEL)
19 (6) Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS)
20 (9) Dinara Safina (RUS)

So Justine's finally back in the top 20, Dinara's nearly out of it, and Peer is now peerless in Israeli tennis as the highest ranking Israeli player ever (Smashnova in 2003 and Peer in 2007 both each reached No.15, the document tells us).

Schiavone is the 101st player to break the top 10 since computer rankings introduced in 1975. #99 was Li Na and #100 was Sam Stosur.

This is also the first time since 2003 when there was only one woman in the top ten (Myskina). Wow - I can't remember back that far.

I also can't remember the last time in men's or women's tennis that the #1 and #2 singles players in the world also formed the #1 doubles team. I'm not a Serena fan (I like Venus) but I really really respect the Williams sisters for playing doubles! They won today, and now have a non-calender-year grand slam in doubles (i.e. they are currently the defending doubles champs for all four slams). [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

This is also the first time since 2003 when there was only one woman in the top ten (Myskina).

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This is also the first time since 2003 when there was only one RUSSIAN woman in the top ten (Myskina).