World Tennis Magazine

Unique Tennis Perspectives

final game

A different Serena avenges US Open Loss to Stosur without hindrance

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It wasn’t the U.S. Open final, so you could hardly call it a straight shot at revenge, but this was a very different Serena Williams this afternoon at the Sony Ericsson Open as she served her way past Sam Stosur, and, thank goodness, we didn’t have a repeat of the hindrance controversy that soiled that championship match in New York.

Although. . .

It was certainly a beautiful coincidence that the chair umpire this time was a woman who had only last week made one of those rare hindrance calls in a match between Maria Sharapova and Maria Kirilenko.

I’ll get back to the hindrance in a moment. First, the details on this one hour and 45 minute match on Key Biscayne that sent Serena into the quarterfinals against the winner of Yanina Wickmayer vs. Caroline Wozniacki.

Serena Williams (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Williams smacked 20 aces, nine in the opening set of a 7-5, 6-3 win, and three more in the final game after going down love-40 and giving Stosur a sniff at rallying back into the match.

This wasn’t vintage Williams, except for the serve. The forehand was in and out much of the afternoon and she missed three gimme short balls with careless footwork. But, on balance, this was Williams when she wasn’t injured, unlike that Open final, which Stosur won 6-2, 6-3.

That first and probably only Stosur Grand Slam win will be long remembered for Serena’s childish outburst in the opening game of the second set when she slashed a forehand deep to Sam’s backhand corner and screamed in delight as Stosur hustled to the ball, getting a racket to it but unable to control it.

Chair umpire Eva Asderaki of Greece correctly ruled a hindrance for calling out during the rally, which is pretty rare, handing Stosur the point and depriving Williams of a break and a 1-0 lead.

Now, on a very bright but not horribly hot South Florida Monday, Williams and Stosur were playing for the first time since the Open final, and there was, of course, no way Asderaki was going to be in the chair for this one.

Instead, the call went to Mirija Cicak of Croatia, who a week ago in the Indian Wells quarters, awarded Sharapova a hindrance point when, in the midst of a long rally, Kirilenko began swatting her racket against the concrete.

Kirilenko didn’t like it, especially at 4-5 in the second set, but rules are rules and Cicak awarded Sharapova the point. Later, Maria chided her fellow Russian: “Unless you’re deaf, of course you notice it. The whole stadium was quiet. It’s not something I’ve ever come across. Maybe in the 12-and-unders, but not very recently.”

Everything was a lot more civil than in the U.S. Open final, in which Serena told the umpire, “You’re a hater. You’ve not very attractive inside.”

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

Caroline Wozniacki’s ’09 Doha Cramping Overlooked in run to the top

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Conspicuously absent from the wealth of copy written from the recent WTA Championships in Doha was Caroline Wozniacki’s brave performance in fighting off severe cramping to defeat Vera Zvonareva at the same tournament a year ago.

I bring it up now because we’re about to discuss how good Wozniacki can be and whether there is still upside to a 20-year-old No. 1 who looks more and more to me like Martina Hingis with a lot more punch.

I can still see the terrible grimace on Wozniacki’s face when the 2009 cramping occurred. She had just completed a point in the final game of a three-set match when her left leg began to twitch and she collapsed to the court, as if someone had slapped her feet out from under her.

She had to take a point penalty warning because it took so long for her to roll over and get to her feet. But she trooped on and, after Zvonareva choked away the game (Caro was serving at 5-4), Wozniacki was in tears, her mouth just a wide, horrifying gash, her legs so stiff she seemed to be going to the net on stilts for the handshake.

She was 19 then and that match was an early tipoff as to how mentally tough she is, and that is a factor in the judgment of professional tennis players that you must never undervalue.

Fast forward to this year’s WTA Championships, where she reached the final and lost in three sets to Kim Clijsters, though she will finish the year at No. 1 and probably carry that honor into the Australian Open in mid-January.

No reasonable person is going to anoint her the best player in women’s tennis right now, no matter what the rankings say, but that doesn’t mean she can’t ascend to the top of the mountain. She is only 20 and, yes, there is plenty of upside there. Her game already is very mature. It’s rare to see this kind of rally patience and extremely savvy shot selection in one so young. But there is even more she can do.

Where is her game right now? She’s a bit like an earlier Andy Murray, playing to force errors from her opponents rather than run up dozens of winners, and while that’s a great tactic if you’ve got the quickness and patience to grind the long points, it will take you only so far.

When you reach the final four of a big tournament (Grand Slam, Indian Wells, Key Biscayne, WTA Championships), you’ve got to add an element of risk, and already we’re seeing signs of that from Caro.

Typically, a three-set match for her produces something on the order of 15 winners and 13 unforced errors. She was at 31 and 30 in the Clijsters final, playing with more (but selected) aggressiveness without losing her basic long-rally style.

It’s not unlike the game Hingis visited upon women’s tennis in that void in the 1990s between Steffi Graf’s greatest moments and the rise of the Williams sisters. But Hingis never hit her serve, first or second, with as much gusto as does Wozniacki, and Hingis could only dream of having a return of serve as good as Wozniacki’s.

So, where can Caro get better? Of course you can always get better at everything you do on court, but the question is more a matter of what MUST she do better to establish some real dominance in women’s tennis.

* First serve: She averages a bit over 100 mph and gets a very high percentage in (well over 65 percent usually). Pump it up about five mph in order to start collecting free points. Make opponents fear not just her first ground stroke after the serve, but the serve itself.

* Volleying: Average and at times better than average, but never brilliant. When you hit ground strokes with as much accuracy as Wozniacki there’s no reason why you can’t get in behind it and end points earlier. It’s not just a matter of how she contacts the volley. It’s also a matter of the path she takes to net, where she sets up and her ability to read the passing shots. All that can get better. This is not a criticism. How many 20-year-olds are polished volleyers — men or women? But volleying became a major improvement in Hingis’ game as she got older and it can be for Caro as well.

* Picking her spots to play riskier ball: She did a good job against Clijsters in the final and if she continues to become more selectively aggressive she’ll more intuitively know when the time is right to shoot for the killer shot from the baseline.

* Finally, physical strength. She has an excellent frame at 5-foot-10 and she’s got the sturdy lower body that is so conducive to highest quality ground stroking. She can still get stronger and it’s a safe wager that she’ll be doing a lot of gym work this off-season. Maybe more than hitting.

In the Doha final last Sunday, she lost to Clijsters (now 0-2 lifetime vs. Kim) because Clijsters has the ability to hit anyone off the court with her power. There are two other players out there who have the consistency or potential consistency and the physical strength to beat Wozniacki in the same way — Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova.

How Wozniacki does against those two players in 2011 will tell us how good she can be. With Williams, who knows when or if they’ll play again (Williams holds a 2-0 head-to-head) because of Serena’s frequent injuries.

As for Sharapova, she’s dropped to No. 17 in the rankings, but I’d like to believe that, despite a lack of progress in the Slams this season, she can still recapture her elite status. Cut Maria some slack. Yes, it’s a year and a half since she came back from shoulder surgery, but she spent a lot of months re-finding her serve, and a lot of her game flows out of her serve.

She’s engaged to be married and that could settle her life down a bit. She trains hard and she’s gifted, but she showed a noticeable lack of staying power in the long rallies in 2010. She’s only going to get that back through increased practices and, when she’s right, she has enough gusto to overpower Wozniacki’s win-by-attrition tactics.

One other factor is Justine Henin, who missed half of this year with injury. She doesn’t bring the power factor of Williams, Clijsters or Sharapova, but if she gets back to her pre-retirement level, she’s the one player out there who can out-grind Wozniacki.

All the more reason why Caro is going to have to produce more risk in the big matches. But she’s so young and, because of her age, she doesn’t have to be the faux No. 1 that some make her out to be.

She’s got all the ability, plus the heart and drive to overcome cramps. There’s no reason why she can’t collect a fistful of Slam titles and be a No. 1 that no one will question.

RESILIENT RAFA PULLS OUT TOUGH WIN

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Rafa Nadal was fist-pumping and gyrating all over the court in celebration after this excruciating semifinal, a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 triumph over ball-crushing Ernests Gulbis that seemed headed for a very dangerous third-set tiebreak, and you knew from Rafa’s post-match exhileration that he was particularly happy to get out of this one.

It was a final-four match at Rome that was significant for a few reasons. For Nadal, it pushed him to his 10th consecutive win on clay this year without a loss and into his second final, to play amigo David Ferrer, following his dominance at Monte Carlo two weeks ago. It also demonstrated, once again, his resilience and resourcefulness in dealing with a hot opponent. At 23, Nadal still doesn’t get enough credit for his ability to make adjustments in mid-match.

For Gulbis, who had taken out Roger Federer in the second round, it raised a pretty important question: Just how good is this guy?

His ranking of No. 40 will improve significantly when the ATP computer spits out the new list on Monday morning and, after what he has shown these last few weeks, there are a lot of people wondering if he’s top-10, even top-5 material. His ball contact is so impeccable that, even on clay, his ground strokes are lethal from just about any position on court.

As for foot speed? Good enough. Guts and heart? “I (bleeped) in my pants,” he said after confronting match points against Federer last week — a remark that will be remembered, humorously, for a long time. But he never choked. Was it Rod Laver who said that when he felt tight on court, he didn’t let up but, rather, just hit harder. That appears to be Gulbis’ philosophy as well, though he made a couple of fatal drop shot mistakes in the final game of the Nadal match, which we’ll get into in a moment.

Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal

This was a match with just three service breaks — one in each set. Nadal defended his serve with pinpoint accuracy and his ability to back it up by taking charge of points early. Gulbis, meanwhile, defended his serve with pace — an average 121 mph on first serve. Maybe that doesn’t seem particularly high, but when you factor in those slice serves to the deuce court which require less speed to be effective, 121 is Andy Roddick territory.

Gulbis presents opponents with two major difficulties. One is his first serve, which he got in an extraordinary 77 percent of the time, even at such high pace. The other is his ground stroking. He’s going for the lines and he’s not waiting for a high-percentage situation. Actually, a high-percentage situation for Gulbis is any ball he can get a shoulder turn on. He had 50 winners and 53 unforced errors in this semifinal, and that’s typical of the risk with which he plays.

But as good as his first serve is, the second is a liability against better players. The pace on that second serve is a lot better than the location, and, as the third set wore on and Nadal searched for ways to earn the crucial break, he repeatedly took advantage of the few second serves he was offered. If Gulbis is to break top 10 he’s going to have to get better on that second. He’s also going to have to steady down his shot selection at crunch time, though he’s doing a much better job of that under new coach Hernan Gumy.

Serving to stay in the match at 4-5 in the third, Gulbis inexplicably settled on a couple of drop shots on the first two points. Nadal was all over both — easily. Rafa then made a couple of remarkably returns off first serves to close it out at love. And was he happy to get out of there.

One of the best things Nadal did in the third set was to get more topspin on his returns to Gulbis’ backhand side. The Latvian clearly was not as comfortable with high balls off his left as he is off the forehand side. Once Rafa was able to force cross-court rallies between his (left-handed) forehand and Gulbis’ backhand, he was in command. Where Gulbis’ forehand does not break down in long rallies, his backhand does.

He’s fun to watch because he gives you a lot of gestures and body language, but he’s also a bit tiresome as you watch him go to the towel after every service point, wiping a forehand that looks completely dry. This is classic Greg Rusedski time-wasting, but, then, Nadal can push the clock between points, too.

Gulbis admits that he wasn’t always fully committed to his training, but that he is now. If he continues this kind of play, he’ll be a factor at the French Open and certainly one at Wimbledon and the U.S. hardcourt season this summer.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

IN-FORM CILIC MAINTAINS WINNING WAYS

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Dubai, UAE, February 23rd, 2010 – Croatia’s Marin Cilic continued his winning ways this year by defeating Arnaud Clement of France 6-2 6-4 to reach the second round of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships on Tuesday.

The number six seed has now won 16 matches this year, claiming titles in Chennai and Zagreb, with his only defeat coming against Andy Murray in the semi-finals of the Australian Open. This month he celebrated reaching the world’s top 10 for the first time.

It was no surprise then that he put in a solid performance against Clement and didn’t face a break point until the final game. He got off to a perfect start by breaking serve to love in the opening game, and then solidified his advantage by breaking again for 5-2 and then serving out the set at love and finishing with an ace.

A Clement double-fault gave Cilic a break for 3-2 in the second set, and he held a further break point to lead 5-2. He failed to take advantage of that opportunity, and Clement then had the chance to extend the match when he held five break points to level at 5-5.

But Cilic rose to the challenge, saving three of those break points with aces before finally ending the contest with his seventh ace of the match.

Indian qualifier Somdev Devvarman also reached the second round and a meeting with Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis by overcoming Italian-speaking Swiss Marco Chiudinelli 6-4 7-5.

Just one break of serve decided the first set after Devvarman took a 2-1 lead. He then had to be patient in the second, holding off a break point when down 3-2 before breaking his opponent for a 6-5 lead and serving out the match to love.

Germany’s Michael Berrer also advanced, defeating Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine 6-4 7-6.
Berrer had a tough time holding his first service game for 1-1, holding off three break points before finally holding the 20-point game with his fifth game point.

He then broke to lead 4-3 and that was enough to give him the set, and he broke again at the start of the second set and held to lead 2-0. And although Stakhovsky recovered the break to level at 3-3, Berrer dominated the tiebreak to win it 7-3.

Wozniacki Ends Melanie’s Dream

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NEW YORK – Four straight unforced errors ended one dream and continued another.

Although the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd was loudly pulling for her, Melanie Oudin’s dream run at the US Open ended Wednesday night when she was overwhelmed 6-2 6-2 by ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki.

“She had a great run, beaten so many great players,” said Wozniacki, the first Danish player to reach the semifinals in a Grand Slam tournament Wozniacki made sure Oudin’s “great run” didn’t continue, instead controlling the points with her consistent baseline game, moving her 17-year-old opponent all around the court and finding answers to every problem the Marietta, Georgia, right-hander posed. In the final game, Oudin won the first point, then netted a forehand, attempted a backhand drop shot that didn’t even make it to the net, sailed a forehand long and was wide with a backhand on match point.

With a spot in the championship match awaiting the winner, Wozniacki will next take on Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium, who won her quarterfinal earlier in the day, 7-5 6-4 over Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine.

Oudin became the darling of America’s premier tennis tournament when she unexpectedly mowed down a series of Russians in her march to the quarterfinals. Although she had upset Jelena Jankovic en route to the fourth round at Wimbledon, she was a pleasant surprise here on the hard courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

The youngster started off by beating Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, then followed that up with victories over fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva, 29th-seeded Maria Sharapova and 13th-seeded Nadia Petrova. With each successive upset, Oudin’s dream grew more vivid along with the expectations from growing legend of fans.

Only two years older than Oudin, Wozniacki never was in trouble against the American, repeatedly hitting with heavy topspin, making the ball jump up high to Oudin’s ground strokes. It was Wozniacki who was dictating the pace and the points.

“She’s such a strong player. She doesn’t give you anything for free,” Oudin said of Wozniacki. “She plays incredible defense. Makes me hit a thousand balls and really is a really great player.”

Unlike Oudin, Wozniacki wasn’t an unknown entity when she began the year’s final Grand Slam tournament. She was seeded ninth after entering the US Open having won the 56 matches, the most of any player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour this year. And she has captured three titles this year, including the Pilot Pen in New Haven, Connecticut, the day before the US Open began its two-week run.

Wozniacki said she wasn’t bothered by the crowd’s overwhelming support of Oudin.

“It’s always tough to play against a home favorite,” Wozniacki said. “I had this experience in Australia this year where I played (Australian) Jelena Dokic.

“I knew how I was going to feel to be out there and the crowd, but I just used the energy and tried to convert it into some good tennis.”

Oudin’s never-say-die attitude, her big forehand and her constant pressure caused her Russian opponents to eventually collapse. Not so with Wozniacki.

“She beat some great players,” Wozniacki said of Oudin. “I knew that it was going to be tough and I knew that she was going to fight to the last point. I just thought about one point at a time, one ball at a time and tried not to think too much about the score.
“I’m a fighter, so I don’t give up. I fought to the last point.”

Like Wozniacki, Wickmayer is playing in a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time. Her lone WTA Tour singles title came on clay in Estoril, Portugal.

Wickmayer started the US Open by upsetting 16th-seeded Virginie Razzano. Since then she has not had to face another seeded player.

“Before this my best result was second round (in a Grand Slam tournament),” Wickmayer said. “So of course when you get to the third, fourth round, you start surprising yourself. But actually I’ve been staying pretty calm. I’ve worked really hard for this.”
Top-seeded Roger Federer advanced one step closer to a sixth consecutive US Open men’s singles title when he ended the night by dodging an inspired Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-0 6-3 6-7 (6) 7-6 (6).

It appeared as if Federer would sail through the quarterfinal against the man he beat in the French Open final. But Soderling stepped up his game in the third set, and after Federer swept out to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreak, Soderling roared back to win it 8-6.
The two battled evenly through the fourth set, Federer using his huge serve and Soderling his big ground strokes.

Then, suddenly, Soderling ripped a forehand crosscourt that sailed wide, the only mini-break in the tiebreak, but one that gave Federer the match at 8-6.

“It was so close towards the end, a great relief to come through,” Federer said. “The beginning was a bit too easy. But he showed what a great player he is.”

The Swiss superstar is in his record 22nd straight major semifinal – Ivan Lendl had the old mark at 10 – and is seeking to become the first man to win three consecutive majors in one season since Rod Laver completed the Grand Slam in 1969.

Federer also is bidding to become the first man since Bill Tilden in 1925 to win six consecutive US titles. He is the only man to win five or more successive titles at two Grand Slam tournaments, having won Wimbledon from 2003 through 2007.

In the semifinals, Federer will face fourth-seeded Novak Djokovic, a 7-6 (2) 1-6 7-5 6-2 winner over Fernando Verdasco.