Jennifer Brady defies lockdown and Muchová to reach Australian Open final
Jennifer Brady’s legs were shaking and her heart racing after the American overcame Karolina Muchová and two weeks in hard quarantine to set up an Australian Open final with Japan’s Naomi Osaka.
It will be Brady’s first grand slam final after the 25-year-old stopped Muchová 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 in Thursday’s thrilling second semi-final at Melbourne Park.
Third-seeded Osaka earlier ousted seven-times champion Serena Williams 6-3, 6-4 in the first semi.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Brady said after needing four match points to put the Czech away. “My legs are shaking, my heart is racing – I don’t have words. I’m obviously pretty excited to be in the final of the Australian Open,”
Brady described making the final at Melbourne Park as an “incredible achievement”.
But it was all the more incredible given she was one of 51 players in the Open singles draw to be confined to their hotel rooms for 14 days after being on infected charter flights into Melbourne.
“It will be a really tough match, obviously, as she’s won a few grand slams,” Brady said ahead of her fourth career meeting with Osaka, who she lost to in three sets in last year’s US Open semifinals. “We had a tough match at the US Open in the semi-finals and she even said it was one of her top two matches, which was unfortunate for me. I think it will be a really good match.”
Ranked 24th in the world, that semifinal run at Flushing Meadows was Brady’s previous best performance at a major.
Big-serving Brady looked in control early against Muchová, who had upset world No 1 Ash Barty in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. But Brady, who is Barty’s doubles partner, did what the Australian could not and resisted a Muchová fightback.
It wasn not easy with Brady’s unforced error count through two sets hitting 30 as she lost her way. Her frustration was evident as she kicked the ball away after the 25th- seed took the second set.
But Brady got the jump early in the third set, crucially breaking Muchová to lead 2-1.
The pair went toe to toe and Brady, serving for the match at 5-4, almost prematurely celebrated when Muchová dumped a backhand in the net on her second match point.
Instead, the electronic line caller found Brady’s previous forehand to have flown millimetres over the baseline.
In the gripping final game, Brady was then forced to save three break points as the steely Czech held on, before the American got the result on her fifth match point.
The Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, has condemned plans for a breakaway European Super League as “destructive to the value of domestic football across Europe”.
In his strongest intervention yet to the €6bn plan, in which 15 founding clubs would receive between €100m and €350m for joining, Masters said he was intrinsically opposed to a system where the battle for promotion and relegation barely matters.
“Any proposal that I’ve read about or heard about doesn’t have access via domestic leagues, or if it does, it is at the bottom end of the pyramid,” he told the FT Business of Football summit. “So that will be destructive to the value of domestic football across Europe, not just the Premier League.”
Masters also confirmed he was against a separate Uefa plan to reform the Champions League – which would involve it growing from 32 to 36 teams and the number of fixtures rising from 125 to 225 – and rejected the idea that the Premier League could slim down to free space for more European games.
“The English football calendar is jampacked,” he said. “I think for the foreseeable future, the Premier League is a 20-club competition.”
However Uefa’s proposals for an “Swiss model” revamp of the Champions
League were given a warmer welcome by the president of the European Leagues, Lars-Christer Olsson – albeit with several caveats. But Olsson warned Uefa that if it did increase the Champions League to 36 teams, more domestic champions must be included rather than Premier League teams.
“We would prefer champions from Scotland, Denmark or Switzerland, for example, to qualify rather than team No 6 from England or Spain,” he said.
While not rejecting Uefa’s proposals out of hand, Olsson also said the plan to have four more exclusive Champions League “match weeks” would hurt the 1,000 clubs not in Europe who would be unable to play matches and “cannibalise” domestic TV revenue.
However he said the current system was also unworkable and would continue to grow the financial gap in European club football. “It will also prevent the free and proper competition for the titles in the European competitions, as well as in the domestic competitions, and this cannot continue. So give us the time needed for a proper process to involve all stakeholders and make the right decision for the benefit of all.”
Meanwhile Masters appeared bullish about a domestic TV rights deal for the Premier League between 2022-25, which is expected to be concluded this year, saying he did not expect a big drop from the current £5bn deal between Sky, BT and Amazon. “I accept that we’re in a challenging environment,” he said. “I don’t accept that things have plateaued or that we’re looking at a downward curve.”