As the Australian Open winds toward a conclusion, one surprise towers above all others: It turns out that the women's singles tournament was the predictable one, while the men's was the one filled with unexpected names looming large in the results.
With the tournament down to the semifinals, three of the players on the WTA side are either current or former No. 1 players, and one of them is a recent Australian Open champion. Here's a breakdown of the two semifinals:
No. 1 Simona Halep vs. No. 21 Angelique Kerber (Kerber leads series 5-4)
If a player could be said to "deserve" a place in the final, which one would you choose? Halep, the game, diminutive warrior, has survived despite a rolled ankle (first round) and three match points against in a brutal third-round contest, which lasted a shade under four hours. In stark contrast, Kerber has been simply and undramatically brilliant.
Whichever way your heart tugs, Kerber emerged Wednesday as the woman to beat. She has been the most dominant player in the tournament. The way Kerber destroyed Madison Keys left no doubt that Halep will have her hands full.
But Halep made a statement of her own Wednesday. She routed No. 6 seed Karolina Pliskova in almost equally impressive fashion, winning 6-3, 6-2. Both Kerber and Halep neutralized the famously big serves of their opponents with aggressive and precise returning, while using their own unremarkable serves wisely. They took control of and dominated the rallies, keeping their bigger, stronger rivals off the net as well as back off the baseline.
Now, it won't be about contrasting games. When the two gifted defenders and counterpunchers meet, the outcome may well be decided at the margins -- winner-to-error differential, first-serve conversion percentage, etc. But here's an interesting detail: Halep won their first three meetings, all in 2015 or earlier, but Kerber has won five of their next six -- all in 2016. That was the year she added that extra offensive dimension to her game and ended up a multiple Grand Slam champion.
Kerber lost that attacking drive during her crisis of confidence last year, but Halep never got the chance to test her. That aggression appears to be back. "I think this is [the part of the] game the last few weeks that I tried to improve, trying to take the match in my hands. ... I'm feeling the ball really good," Kerber said.
That aggressive mindset and confidence gives Kerber the edge over Halep, who has yet to balance her marvelous defense with a comparable measure of offense.
Winner: Kerber
No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki vs No. 36 Elise Mertens (Wozniacki leads series 1-0)
Mertens was so off the radar at the start of this tournament that she wasn't even cited as one of those dangerous unseeded players called a "floater." But if you saw the way she figured out the game of one-dimensional No. 4 seed Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals, you know this will be no gimme for Wozniacki. Mertens, a 22-year-old Belgian, piled up an impressive number of good wins last year and established herself as a clever, flexible player with an all-court attacking game.
"Women's tennis has evolved a lot, but I think everyone plays decent level, really good level," Mertens said after she overwhelmed Svitolina. "I think it's very close. [So] you have to play aggressive; that's for sure. That's what I tried to improve in my game."
Wozniacki needs to heed and think about that comment, not least because some believe that her failure to win a major despite having contested two finals boils down to an overreliance on defense and counterpunching.
Wozniacki is back in the Australian Open semifinals for the first time since 2011, when she was ranked No. 1 in the world. At the time, winning a first Grand Slam title seemed an inevitability. Seven years later, she's still without a major title, but she burst out of a long, recent slump in 2017 and rocketed to No. 3 by year's end on the strength of the best record in women's tennis. Now that long-deferred Grand Slam title seems tantalizingly within grasp for this more mature, wiser competitor.
A glance at the stat sheet will show Wozniacki exactly what she's up against in this newcomer. Mertens, who's an elastic and rangy 5-foot-10, was 15-for-20 at the net against Svitolina, a defender in the same class as Wozniacki. Mertens has a 74 percent success rate for the tournament in net approaches -- about 10 percentage points better than the tournament average.
If Mertens can serve well and push Wozniacki back on her heels with aggressive returning, she has a good chance. But Mertens admitted she was "in the zone" in the quarterfinals. The chance that it will happen again, in just her fourth Grand Slam event (and first Australian Open), is unlikely.
Winner: Wozniacki