Women's tennis turns back clock

With Purple fans in various states of anxiety, panic, apoplexy and delirium leading up to Sunday's Big Game against Big D and the rest of the state just struggling to cohabitate with them, the furthest thing from Minnesota minds both literally and seasonally is the start of the 2010 Australian Open.

As a reminder to those who lost all peripherality once Chilly drove up with Brett riding shotgun last August, the Australian Open is a big tennis tournament ... in Melbourne ... in Australia ... where it is the middle of summer right now.

Speaking of time warps, you would have thought the women's tour had been in hibernation the last couple of years with the dearth of players rising to fill the retired tennies of such past champions as Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport and the oft-injured Maria Sharapova. It would be an understatement to say that top-10 upstarts named Wozniacki, Azarenka and Radwanska haven't exactly been suitable replacements.

Even those likable Serbs have been serendipitous. Ana Ivanonic, the expected heir apparent with her flashy looks and flashier forehand, won the French Open and the top ranking in 2008 only to inexplicably fall into a slump. She now ranks 21st. And the smiling Jelena Jankovic doesn't seem to be smiling as much anymore now that she's No. 8 instead of No. 2.

With Venus Williams currently able to get up for precisely one tournament per year -- Wimbledon -- sister Serena has been left to basically take candy from the rest of the women on tour. She was doing a pretty good job of it, too, winning three majors in the last two years before her obscenity-laced meltdown in the semifinals of last year's U.S. Open signaled the re-emergence of, as Captain Renault would say, "the usual suspects."

Re-enter Clijsters, the Belgian fan favorite who took far longer to carry her firstborn to term than to come out of retirement and ascend the Grand Slam dais in New York last September. That's either an amazing statement about how good Clijsters is or a pathetic indictment about the state of the women's field. I report, you decide.

After watching her countrywoman and past rival quickly gather the low-hanging fruit, Henin decided to do the same (without the birthing part) and has returned to the tour this year. In her first tournament last week -- oh the shock -- she made it all the way to the final, falling 7-6 in the third set to ... Clijsters. The political world may be about change, but the women's tour is all about retro.

Don't expect any of these retirement-to-achievement headlines on the men's side in Melbourne though. Andre Agassi fans may have been hoping for just such an announcement in the November release of his New York Times bestselling autobiography, "Open," but instead were treated to bewildering revelations of a lifelong, abject hatred of the sport. Agassi may be from Vegas, but don't bet on him to come back on tour any time soon.

I'd like to say we can anticipate another year of the Roger vs. Rafa rivalry, but this is a time for realism. Yes, Federer had an unexpectedly amazing year in 2009, winning the French Open for the first time, garnering his record 15th major title at Wimbledon and regaining the No. 1 ranking, but the Swiss' success last year had much to do with the Spaniard not being on the other side of the net because of his nagging knees. The fact is, Federer is not as consistently dominant as he once was, Nadal has lost his momentum, and a tall, young Argentine named Juan Martin Del Potro whipped both Rafa and Roger in winning the U.S. Open last summer.

The Australian Open is always the most unpredictable Grand Slam event. For the top players, the offseason is short and warmup events scarce heading into the year's first major. This gives a rested and ready, lesser-known player the opportunity to score an upset or two and make a deep run into the second week. That being said, I'll still take Del Potro and Henin ... and the Vikings by seven.