Second semifinal, Australian Open

While the results were about what I expected from yesterday, the routes that the various matches took weren't quite what I thought they would be. Serena Williams struggled against a solid Li Na and was clearly hurting, physically. But after she won in straight sets, she went out with her sister and beat Lisa Raymond and Renee Stubbs in the doubles semifinal. The doubles final is today, and then the women's final is tomorrow. That's a lot of tennis for Serena to play in not a lot of time.

And her opponent in the final is going to be relatively fresh, as Justine Henin breezed through Zheng Jie, dropping only one game in the process. It would be a shame if the first meeting between these two champions in a major final featured a Serena who was at less than her best, but we'll see. Nadal should have been exhausted in last year's final as well, but he found a way to come out on top.

The men's semi from yesterday looked like it was going to be a repeat of the Murray-Cilic match from last year's U.S. Open, with Murray coming out tentative and Cilic coming out on fire. But Murray upped his game and his offense, while Cilic just ran out of gas. A great first run to the semifinals for the young Croat, and I expect we'll see him here again.

For tonight, Federer plays Tsonga. The pair have a 1-1 record, but their last meeting was one of the craziest ones from 2009. After Tsonga took the first set at Montreal in a tiebreak, Federer stepped it up. He took the second set 6-1, and then was up 5-1 in the third. Suddenly, amazingly, he took his foot off the gas, and Tsonga break Fed while he was serving for the match, twice. He then took the third in a tiebreak.

I don't expect Federer to drop off like that in this semifinal, and Tsonga has to be exhausted, after winning the first two five-set matches of his career in the last two rounds. It seems like a Murray-Federer final is all but a sure thing at this point. Unless J.W. "Ali" Tsonga can get back to the gear he was playing at two years ago at this tournament, but honestly, I haven't seen him play that well since.