I guess I owe you an apology, especially if you had such faith in my finals preview that you decided to take my predictions and gamble with them.

First off, I picked Sharapova to beat Azarenka in a close three set match. And, um, the Russian definitely disappointed. I’d be lying if I told you I saw that match, but a 6-3, 6-0 final is something I’m glad I didn’t wake up for. I suppose I should take solace in the fact that I did predict it would be ugly at times…

None the less, our congratulations go out to Victoria Azarenka on her first Grand Slam title and #1 ranking in the world! Now, since they played about an hour and the men played about 6, I’ll devote a bit more space here for them.

Somehow I forced myself to wake up at 7am Eastern Standard Time on Sunday morning after a long ski day, and even longer apres ski evening. I was hoping to catch the last few games, not the last two sets of what is easily one of the greatest tennis matches ever played. The fact that it went a whopping 5:53 is not what really amazes me, it’s that they both played at such high levels in the 6th hour of the match. Read that sentence again, they played for 6 hours…thats 2 viewings of ‘Braveheart,’ or 12 episodes of ‘Seinfeld’ (including commercial breaks). That is insane…even more insane is that besides the last few games of the 5th set (when they were both visibly exhausted), the level of play seemed to increase as the match went on.

I guess I feel bad for Rafa, he choked on an easy backhand pass that would’ve given him a 4-2, 40-15 lead on his own serve, and from that point on pretty much fell apart. Of course, the phrase ‘fell apart,’ is relative – when I fall apart on the tennis court I double fault games away and look like I just watched highlights of the David Tyree ‘Helmet Catch’ for an hour straight. Rafa, on the other hand, grinded like only Rafa does and came up just short. The only reason I hesitate to feel worse for Nadal is that he still deposited a check for over $1.2 million today.

A few sentences now on 2012 Australian Open Champion, Novak Djokovic. For a moment, forget about him ripping off his shirt, or his excessive fist pumps to the crowd and his box at the end, or his excessive ball bouncing, or pretty much anything else about him that annoys you, and just appreciate what he is doing as a tennis player right now. It’s not quite as dominant as what Federer was like in his prime, but in a way that makes it more fun. The man just played two five-hour matches in a 2.5 day span against two of the top four players in the world, and had to fight back in both to come out victorious. It’s all simply remarkable. But then again, so was Nadal yesterday…

Djokovic was wrong about one thing, though, in his post-match speech when he said it’s a shame there couldn’t be two winners…because anyone on that court, in the arena, or watching on TV became one. And at the end of the day, the sport of tennis was the real winner.