I think Li is the one playing the best and I would like her to win. But it's exciting to have a maiden GS champion (at least at the AO).

Amazing performance from Cibulkova, hopefully she'll beat Li in the final.

2nd set:

1-0, Paes holds to 40 on his 2nd GP, great rally to win the game.
1-1, Nestor holds to 40.
2-1, Daniela holds to 15.
2-2, Mladenovic holds to 0.
2-3, Paes broken from 40-30.
2-4, Nestor holds to 0.
3-4, Daniela holds from 15-40.
3-5, Mladenovic holds to 15.
3-6, Paes broken to 30 after saving 2 BPs.

Mladenovic and Nestor played very well, both individually & as a team, and deserved to win. Paes tried to do everything and his shot selection was sometimes pretty questionable and he could never put a service game away. Daniela never had the chance to do that much in the match as it was either winners from Mladenovic & Nestor or Paes trying to do everything.

Daniela had two good wins in singles and really showed her desire, fighting quality and skill to come through before losing to the No. 1. She also did pretty well in doubles as Vesnina & Makarova are in the doubles finals and Mladenovic and Nestor played really well today and look like they could win the mixed.

Last year Daniela only won one match, this year she won six. It would have been great to have done better but her runs here this will give her momentum. She also did some commentary and blogging so she's expanding into new territories.

It was my intention to do the wee hours rooting thing, but no one cooperated in the previous matches, and I conked out. As Chungwit says, Daniela had a pretty good overall tourney, and it creates hope. In the 2 matches I saw, my biggest concern was her first serve, which never got close to 100 mph and too often didn't get in. Ergo, it is intriguing to note that last night, Dani held serve every time while Paes (does Daniela want to delete her tweet that he was her best mixed partner ever……yeah, maybe 5-10 years ago ) was broken all 4 times. I was just starting to get excited about a 5th mixed Slam title. Oh, well, as eddy says, at least she'll get some recovery time from the 10 time zone flight to Paris and we can root for her to make a good accounting there. And, we can all join our gal in telling Pattaya to stick it where the sun never shines!

[quote="eddy]. I have a tinge of sadness that it's Cibulkova not Daniela who reached a grand slam final first. Am rooting for Li simply because she's been runner up twice before.

Delighted for Li Na![/quote]

Me too. Very deserving.
My tinge was not of sadness but of anger. Some of the media was already shoveling their s--t with "Domi has accomplished what Hantuchova couldn't" and all that rot. If Domi had won it would have been 100 times worse. So, despite the smile she sent my way in the hotel lobby at La Costa, I wanted Domi to lose. Can you imagine if Daniela ever reached a major final and lost exactly that way, losing a tiebreak then getting bageled? The Slovaks would have wanted her thrown into a dungeon! So let Domi deal with their wrath.

To lose to serena williams, the eventual women's doubles runners up and the winners of the mixed shows daniela lost to quality opponents.