TheSportsCampus

After last night's marathon tennis encounter between Nadal and Fernando Verdasco, watching tennis today was always going to be a bit of an anti-climax.

In the first of three matches of significance, boys' top-seed Yuki Bhambri of India confirmed a place in the record books and established his credentials as a future tennis great, by winning a very one-sided Boys Singles final 6-3, 6-1 over unseeded German Alexandros-Ferdinandos Georgoudas.

Georgoudas, who had upset second seed Julen Uriguen in straight sets yesterday, was no match for the 16-year old Indian, who wrapped up the match in under an hour, thus becoming the fourth Indian after the father-son pairing of Ramanathan and Ramesh Krishnan, and Leander Paes to win a Junior Grand Slam. He is also the first of the lot, to win here in Australia.

Yuki dominated the match from the get-go, and wrapped up the first set with a double break of serve in just over half-an-hour. In fact, the young Indian was so dominant, that he dropped just four points on his own serve in the opening set.

There was no respite for Georgoudas in the 2nd, as Yuki now also dominated on the German's serve, winning 11 of 19 points while receiving, to wrap up a rather comfortable win.

If the first match of the day was one-sided, then the Women's final featuring 2nd seed Serena Williams and 3rd seed Dinara Safina was like dancing on air.

Serena, saving her best tennis of the week for the final, came out like a house on fire and completely wiped the slate clean in a 22 minute demonstration of power tennis 6-0. Safina won just 8 points in the entire first set!

Completely against the run of play, Safina won the opening game of the 2nd set breaking the Williams serve. The crowd hoped that this would spur her on, and they would be treated to a contest at last. However it was not to be as Williams won the next four games in a row to go ahead 4-1. Safina to her credit made Serena serve for the match enduring a strong challenge in the 8th game. Williams however kept her date with destiny to wrap up he match 6-0, 6-3 in 59 minutes to win her fourth Australian Open title and her 10th Grand Slam.

The win completed a famous double for Serena, who had yesterday also captured the Women's Doubles title playing alongside her elder sister Venus.

Also chasing the double, was Indian doubles superstar Mahesh Bhupathi. Teaming up with veteran Mark Knowles from the Bahamas, Bhupathi was playing in the first of his two Doubles finals tonight in the Rod Laver Arena.

Their opponents, the Bryan twins were chasing their third Australian Open doubles title together, and back-to-back Grand Slams after winning the US Open in 2008.

The first set went completely to plan for Bhupathi and Knowles. They broke Bob Bryan in the opening service game and broke the left hander again in the 5th game to go ahead 4-1. The first set took just 27 minutes and Bhupathi & Knowles wrapped it up 6-2.

Games went on serve in the 2nd set, though Bhupathi & Knowles squandered some break opportunities in the 5th and 7th games on the Bryans' serve.

Serving at 5-6, the pressure finally told on Mark Knowles. The veteran of 17 Australian Opens just couldn't buy a first serve, and the Bryan's earned themselves a set point which they instantly took to level proceedings at a set all.

The final set regrettably wasn't much of a contest as the Bryans completely dominated from start to finish. Bhupathi & Knowles could only muster 3 points on their own serves as the Bryan twins wrapped up the match 2-6, 7-5, 6-0.

The win takes the Bryans to joint second in career grand slams won by a pair. Their seven wins however are still four behind those famous Australian Woodies - Mark Woodforde & Todd Woodbridge.

An interesting day of tennis, Indians fans must remember to tune in tomorrow morning at 10:30am (IST) as Bhupathi takes another stab at Australian Open success, this time with Sania Mirza in the Mixed Doubles Final.

Ofcourse after the appetizer, we'll all settle down in our sofas for the afternoon (1:30pm) to watch Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal do battle for the first time since that amazing Wimbledon final last year.

File Photograph Copyright: Rob (Willaims) & TSC (Yuki)