!Nt_small_2

By Jackie, TW Social Director

Good morning, TWibe! Thanks again for putting up with the change in scheduling. Speaking of which, we're thinking of officially moving the Deuce Club from its regular Thursday evening timeslot to perhaps Friday or sometime during the weekend. As we're looking to use this space more to build a profile of our readership, we'd like to make sure that the new time is convenient for the bulk of you. Thus, I need to know what works for y'all - what do you think about a Friday afternoon timeslot? Or early Saturday? Or are you keen on another time altogether? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments or by sending me an e-mail here. Thanks for cooperating, guys!

Before we jump into this week's topic - another Australian Open-related one, naturally - I had to share a photo of a TWiber who had some AO fun of his own. Above is our beloved naughty t, enjoying himself in Melbourne. I had him pegged as one of the finalists, but it just wasn't meant to be - better luck next year, naughty. And many thanks for sending the fabulous photo!

As the AO draws to a close (sniff), I thought we should use this space to reflect on the past two weeks. (Sure it's not over yet, but perhaps it makes some sense to look back at the tournament without the knowledge of who won/lost the whole thing coloring our perception of events.)

We've seen numerous matches, some that we're certain we'll remember come this time next year, others we'd rather forget. Regarding the former category, the following two matches immediately come to mind:

Advertising

Dokic_small_6

Dokic_small_6

As for the forgettable matches, I imagine we're inclined to list those that didn't go "our" way, rather than those that just featured, well, blah tennis. Still, I bet most of us would agree that the Moore-McHale "Cramp-Gate" ordeal or the Monfils-Simon head-scratcher are perfect examples of matches we aren't planning to watch a second time.

But as is so often the case, sometimes the greatest takeaways from Grand Slams aren't the matches themselves but the storylines and characters therein. I already mentioned Dokic's Cinderella story, but what about the emergence of Fernando Verdasco, Giant Killer? Or the near upset-of-the-year-even-though-it's-only-January of Roger Federer at the hands of Tomas Berdych? Plenty happened that made us gasp, cheer, tear up, and yell (and no, I'm not referring to the ESPN commentary).

Keeping all of this in mind, I'd like you to now share your AO impressions. It's likely that the next couple of days' events will alter whatever you're feeling at the moment, but please don't hold back because of that! We can always revisit this in next week's DC, if there's interest. So ... tell us:

Have fun!

(Reminder: Check out our TennisWorld > Real WorldFacebook group and make sure to join, if you haven't already. Current members - there are several new photos and discussion threads up, so take a few minutes to catch up on all the group's goings-on!)