Federer's Great Australian Open

First he defended all his semi final ranking points despite having a seeding of six making it more difficult to do. Compared with last year when he only just got past Tsonga and lost to Murray he beat both convincingly. This was due to some really excellent play and should not only give him confidence going forward but make the rest of the field wary of playing him. Both of these factors can play a huge part in the outcome of future matches.

He lost to Nadal but when Nadal plays his best he probably will. Nadal is 27 and he is 32. My advice to him would be to shrug his shoulders and say "too good". If Nadal doesn't bring his best for some reason he would have a much better chance. Also and this is perhaps more important it's not always necessary to beat Rafa to win a slam or any other tournament.

So well done Fed  

Can't wait for some of the Masters stuff. Best of 2 looks more appealing then seeded 6-8 in a GS.

Junior GOAT was good today

Yeah, he's got to be relatively sanguine given what the draw looked like. Also, I think the main thing for him is the first real run out with the new racquet; hopefully that will groove in as the season goes on and maybe that'll be good. Bear in mind it was only the other day he got beat by Hewitt in Brisbane.

The AO is the 2nd worst for him anyway v Rafa, at least since 2008 when they changed from proper hardcourt to plexispringiform bouncycompound. I didn't see today but Rafa v Dimitrov had the ball rearing up like a ping pong ball.

Promising signs for Federer. On the face of it, every match he won was probably a match he was expected to win (maybe you could say Tsonga was close to 50-50) but it was the style in which he did so that promised so much.

I didn't see today, but in his previous matches there were less backhand shanks than there have been for ages, as as BB alludes to apart from RG this is the worst slam in terms of Rafa's spin targeting the BH. Plus he was moving great in his QF and 4RD matches.

He has an eye on Wimbledon I suspect.