Australian Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 31 January 2009 / Leave a comment

Nowhere for Safina to hide as Serena cruises to final success. Sean Calvert looks back on a highly one-sided Australian Open final.

The highlight of Day 13 in Melbourne was scheduled to be the women's singles final, but it turned out to be the most one-sided title match in recent memory.

Serena Williams was going for her fourth Australian Open title and tenth Grand Slam title, while Dinara Safina was in only her second slam final.

The less said about the first set the better, as far as Safina is concerned.

She was bagelled by Williams, who was playing her best tennis of what has been an in and out tournament as far as her form is concerned and it was way too much for a nervy Safina.

Williams came out firing and hit 12 winners to just three unforced errors in a set that lasted just over 20 minutes and this looked like it was going to be one of the quickest finals in Grand Slam history.

The Safin family are nothing if not fighters though and typically the Russian came straight out and broke Williams straight away to get herself on the board and gain a foothold in the match.

The American was trading at [1.08] after that opening set and she soon returned to that sort of mark when she broke back immediately to level at 1-1, much to the disappointment of the crowd, who wanted more of a contest for their money.

The [1.42] about Williams pre-match was looking like a handy bet, as all of Serena's shots were working, as well as that big serve and she was moving freely too. The chances for Safina looked very remote.

The number three seed was looking anything but a main contender for this title and even the mild mannered Mats Wilander in the Eurosport studio was getting frustrated with her disjointed effort, as Serena went ahead at 2-1.

The unforced error count from Safina's racquet had reached 15 by the time another double fault - her fourth - arrived and handed her opponent a 3-1 lead and a quote of [1.02] for another title.

It takes quite a bit to subdue an Aussie crowd on a Saturday night on finals weekend, but this mismatch had managed to achieve that feat with ease.

Williams was serving at about 95 per cent of first service points won, while Safina was yet to hold serve at 0-6, 1-4 and behind the scenes at Eurosport the researchers were on the case to find the shortest final in history.

Finally, Safina managed to hold serve, which brought about a healthy cheer (some of it no doubt ironic) from the crowd and the [50.0] shot was still in there fighting - just.

Simon Reed brought up the fact that there had been a sizeable increase in ticket prices at the Open this year and indeed some of the crowd might be turning up at the ticket office to demand their money back after this one sided hammering.

There wasn't even a Pat Cash legends match on afterwards to blunt the pain.

Williams, as you would expect, showed no signs on nerves whatsoever and continued to bludgeon the ball past her startled opponent, as she eased into a 5-2 second set lead.

The commentators were struggling to find anything new to say as the same situation was occurring in each and every game, which is that Williams was simply much too good for the Russian.

Even her attempts at racquet smashing were a bit half-hearted; it was more of a gentle bounce than the nice clean destruction that we are used to the Russian siblings demonstrating.

She managed to hold again to at least make Williams serve it out at 5-3, which she did to love and that tenth Grand Slam title was hers.

It was a fantastic performance from Williams, whose broad smile lit up the court, while Safina was predictably pretty much in tears a she slumped into her chair and a quick look at the stats tell the story of a match that Virginia Wade described as 'embarrassing'.

Williams: 58 points won, 23 winners, 7 unforced errors, 0 double faults
Safina: 28 points won, 14 winners, 21 unforced errors, 5 double faults

Total match time: 58 minutes