AnySportAnyTime

Rafael Nadal (Chris Johnson, Wikimedia Commons)

This is an odd weekend in sports for me. For the first time in a long time I’m not watching sports on television during the day.

This is not to say I’m not watching sports. As a matter of fact I’ll be up all night watching sports, catch a few hours of sleep, before attending the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships at the Olympic Oval in Calgary.

So, I’ll be missing the NHL All-Star Game Sunday in Ottawa and have decided to boycott the Pro Bowl Sunday night in Honolulu because in my opinion, you cannot have a legitimate all-star game with the two top teams in the league not represented.

So here is what I’ll be watching:

Saturday–Australian Open Women’s Final–1am–TSN–Third ranked Victoria Azarenka of Belarus takes on fourth ranked Maria Sharapova of Russia for the 2012 Australian Open title. The Australian Open is not the only prize at stake here. The winner will also be ranked number one in the world. Sharapova will be  looking for her fourth Grand Slam title having won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the  Australian Open in 2008. This will be Azarenka’s first Grand Slam final. Head-to-head Sharapova and Azarenka are tied 3-3, but have never played against each other at a major.

Saturday–World Sprint Speed Skating Championships–2pm–CBC–I’ll be in attendance for the event at Calgary’s Olympic Oval. Canada’s major competitors are Olympic Gold medallist Christine Nesbitt of London, Ontario, who won Gold in the women’s 1000m at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Denny Morrison of Chetwynd, British Columbia, who was part of Team Canada’s Olympic Gold medal winning team in the men’s pursuit at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Morrison had a poor showing at the Canadian National Speed Skating Championships earlier this month in Calgary, but rebounded with a solid second place finish in Salt Lake City at a 1000m World Cup last week.

Sunday–Australian Open Men’s Final–1am–TSN–The top two players in the world will battle in Melbourne on Sunday morning. Top seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia takes on second ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain.  It will be interesting to see how Djokovic responds health wise as he has one less day to recover from his marathon with Andy Murray than Nadal did from his marathon with Roger Federer. Also Murray tested Djokovic slightly more than Federer tested Nadal.  Djokovic will be looking for his fifth major title, while Nadal will be looking for his 11th grand slam championship. Head-to-head Nadal leads 16-13, but Djokovic has won the last six meetings, including a 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 win at Wimbledon in 2011 and a 6-2, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 win at last year’s U.S. Open.

Tags: australian open, christine nesbitt, denny morrison, maria sharapova, novak djokovic, RAFAEL NADAL, victoria azarenka, world sprint speed skating championships

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Amateur Sports, ATP World Tour, More. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.