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The Australian Open women's final left people shaking their heads and asking the question: Where exactly does Serena Williams stand in tennis history?
It is probably more pertinent to ask another question: Where does Dinara Safina stand in tennis history?
In other words, was Williams unbelievably good
on Saturday night, or was it a case of Safina being unbelievably bad?
A lob each way might be the best answer.
The commentary team were in their pomp before the match, announcing that Williams had 50 steps to take from the dressing room to her image on the wall of champions.
It's the little details that count on the big occasion, although this detail was just too small for the occasion in this case. Williams didn't need too many more steps to win her 10th Grand Slam title.
"I'm just going to enjoy myself," she told the pre-match interviewer, and that's exactly what she did.
Williams pummeled the Russian 6-0, 6-3 in a mere 59 minutes, of which only 22 were needed for the first set.
Safina was not only very lucky to get 3, she was very fortunate to get 0.
If this was beach cricket - the competing television event on a glorious night of sport - Safina could have scored minus 3. For a start, she deserved to be deducted a good six points for an air shot she delivered on the end of a tired, hopeless stumble towards the ball.
That was in the second set, as the final raced to its inevitable conclusion.
Air shots are notoriously difficult to find in elite tennis. Unless a racket is strung particularly badly, they are hard to find even in club tennis. Most people who commit a tennis air shot head back to see the stringer waving a copy of the consumer guarantees act.
Safina not only missed the ball, and by quite a long way, she also hit the ground.
"I was only a ball boy on the court today," Safina lamented afterwards, although it's hard to recall any of the ball boys (or girls) missing quite as badly as that.
Safina got a million Aussie dollars an hour for playing like a plonker in the final, which would get her into the top 20 of the most overpaid sports people on the planet if it wasn't for the current Tottenham Hotspur squad.
Williams didn't have it entirely easy, having to lug earrings the size of lifebuoys around the court, but she coped admirably.
She was certainly well worth her A$2 million ($2.5 million) payday. As she crashed powerful shots to the edges of the court, you were left to imagine what fabulous contests would ensue if someone with the physical and mental strength of Martina Navratilova and the guile of Martina Hingis could turn up to challenge her.
Compared with the magnificent exploits of the men, and particularly the astonishing games that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have been involved in with each other and others, the women are lucky to be getting equal Grand Slam pay judging by what we saw on Saturday night and have seen elsewhere.
But the equal pay argument goes beyond that, and can't be measured in court time and quality. We should be glad it's here, and it's here to stay which means women's tennis must pull up its socks and live up to the billing. Federer and Nadal have given the women something to aim for, and they should aim for it pronto.
There have been better times for women's tennis, and hopefully they will return again, better than ever.
If Serena Williams could find a decent opponent to play against, we'd have a cracking women's tennis duel to savour. Despite her overpowering dominance, you still feel there are sizeable holes to be found.
A problem for women's tennis is that the one person who could challenge Serena, her big sister Venus, is also trailing in the wake.
For a while, the Williams sisters gave the impression that they took it in turn to fire up for the big occasions but Serena has stormed ahead and doesn't look like being caught by anyone, so long as she remains interested.
She could do with a bit of work on her after-match speaking though.
"Dinara has a good future...she's hitting the ball so hard I just had to go for broke. Thanks to her for putting on a great show for women's tennis."
You can only assume that - like a lot of us - even Williams had trouble watching what was going on for most of the time.