Charleston Video Highlights

Final - Lisicki v Wozniacki - Last Game





Semi-Final - Wozniacki v Dementieva - Last Game





Third-Round - Lisicki v Venus Williams - Highlights

Charleston Round Up

Sabine Lisicki wins her first WTA title, beating Caroline Wozniacki 6-2 6-4 in the Charleston final.

It was a dream week for the German youngster. She beat Venus Williams in the third round in straight-sets and followed it up with three other respectable wins in succession to take the title. Lisicki's game is something of a rarity these days for young European juniors. She's able to hit a consistently hard, deep and penetrating ball off both her forehand and her backhand, and can hit out-right winners from almost anywhere on the court off either wing.

The final itself was nothing short of a flashy, no-nonsense ballbasher coming out on-fire and completely obliterating a steady, hard working baseline grinder with no much in way of weapons. The match reminded me of La Borz' match against Dokic at the Australian Open this year. A ballbasher in Dokic, who can hit outright winners from the baseline off both sides with a big serve hammers a clueless Borz who has no choice but to moonball desperately in the hope that Dokic will suddenly start hitting a million unforced errors. It never happened, and what proceeded was a mammoth beat down. This final was similar, yet Lisicki came out gunning from the first point and didn't hand La Borz a cheap set.

Lisicki treated the junk and puff balls put up to her with severe disdain. The crushing forehand return of serve winners were breathtaking, as was her ability to hit such big winners from about a meter behind the baseline off either wing, especially off the forehand. What's refreshing about Lisicki compared to other extreme ballbashers over the years is the fact that she possesses excellent hands. She's able to hit some excellent short cross-court angled backhand's even under pressure, and her touch shots don't look ridiculously awkward. Her court sense is surprising for her game style. Her defense can be deceptively good too. Not in the Jankovic, or Radwanska sense but she's able to push the ball back from defensive positions quite deep in the court. A bit Safina like in that sense. It's probable though that her movement on fast surfaces lets her down.

She reminds me somewhat of Karolina Sprem circa '04, whom in the clay season of that year played some of the flashiest ballbashing tennis in living memory. In comparing the tow, one must say that Karolina's serve back then was better than Lisicki's. Karolina's 2nd serve was much more reliable and more consistently effective. Their first serve's was probably about equal.
What Sprem had over Lisicki in terms of slightly better defense(although again, Lisicki's defense isin't terrible on clay by any means), Lisicki makes up for in terms of tactical prowess. Her mid-court game is pretty average, but her court sense, dropshots and use of sharp cross-court backhand angles yesterday was astonishing for someone who plays such a flashy power game. Players usually have one or the other, not both.

The Venus vs Sprem match from Berlin '04 arguably involved some of the most outrageous shotmaking from anyone over the past few years. The big difference yesterday for Lisicki was Venus was quite in-and-out groundstroke-wise. A couple of random unforced errors here and there on the big points really did her in. Venus' movement looked a step slower than what it usually is on hardcourts and grass courts, although the Charleston surface does appear to be somewhat unstable. Venus will never get as many cheap point on her serve off clay as she would on even mid-paced hardcourts, so nothing new here. Lisicki served out of her mind in the second set tie-break in that third round - nothing could be done in the end.

Can Lisicki keep this form up for an extended period of time. Let's hope so. The game is in desperate need of players with games like Lisicki. So in conclusion, more game styles like Lisicki, less like La Borz. End of.

Dinara Safina Set for the Top Spot

After Serena Williams lost the Miami final, Safina was guaranteed to reach number one in the world on the 20th of April '09.

The general consensus is that this is a bad thing for the WTA. Well, Safina has certainly had some of the best results of anyone over the past 12 months on the tour, including a handful of Premier (TierI) tournament wins, and two slam finals. Slam wins are a prerequisite for the die-hards though. No slam wins for Safina mean she's instantly not worthy. The same was said about Jankovic when she reached the rankings summit without a slam to her name. Added to the lack of a slam, Safina's form this year has been average at best. After fluking her way to the Australian Open final thanks to a very open draw, she has lost to a red-hot Razzano in Dubai in two sets, and the hopeless Stosur in Miami, again in two sets.

Serena Willams on the her hand has two slam wins over the past year and another slam final. Her current form is much better than Safina's. Yet the main reason why tennis aficionados want Serena to keep her ranking is because she is considered a proven champion. Safina is considered more the opportunist who has taken advantage of the WTA's slump and an extremely hard worker over the past 12 months.

But would Safina reaching the top spot be all that bad for the WTA? Unlikely. The only people who will think it's a travesty are the die-hards. Casual fans probably won't notice, and even if they do they probably wouldn't care enough to question it. It's doubtful that Safina will be number one for all that long, especially considering her current form and the amount of points she's defending in the red clay court season.

Highlights of Safina's match against Sharapova in the fourth round of the Australian Open last year:

A "Star" is Born

Azarenka wins the biggest title of her career thus far, beating the defending champion and current number 1 Serena Williams in the Miami final, 6-3 6-1 last week.



Despite Serena being injured, the final wasn't a foregone conclusion from start to finish. In fact, had Serena landed a few more big shots in the first set, gotten a big more luck, she may have taken the first set and let Azarenka just self-destruct from there on in. However, the tour's unluckiest player finally gets lucky. And in this current hole at he top of the WTA, Azarenka is taking every chance she can get.
She's overachieving of course; she's a shotmaker, but not of the same calibre of other supernova's we've seen over the years.

Azarenka returns Serena's serve excellently. In the first set, Serena make the decision to go full out on serves and one of the things which took her by surprise was the consistency with which Azarenka was able to return her big flat ones, especially down the tee. I've already stated that while have some similar attributes as Vera Zvonareva, she doesn't quite have the same resourcefulness. However, I think in the first set she showed she is capable of returning big first serves by whatever means possible.

Serena throughout was heavily impaired by a knee injury, and needed to resort to her first strike or die tactics in order to wins points. Her defense couldn't be up to scratch so whenever she was forced onto the defense, the point was over save for a random unforced error from the opposition. Serena played lackluster tennis from her very first match of the tournament, yet it was still good enough to make the final on one leg. Not good signs for the WTA.

There are two ways to look at Serena playing the final. One is that she was extremely noble for doing so considering she was clearly far from 100%, and that it was fantastic that she could give the crowd something for their money. On the other hand, her motivations were likely not completely selfless. She was likely desperate to hold onto the number one spot and believed there was still a chance Azarenka would panic and self-destruct in the biggest match of her career thus far.

From the way this tournament panned out, we can deduce that the WTA just can't get a lucky break right now. even things that look like positives for the tour, such as Azarenka emerging as a future possible household name by beating this generations greatest player in a big final, come about in the lamest of fashions possible.

The tour gets another dud final, and another player wins something by default. Then again, the only way Vicky probably would have won yesterday was by something like this occurring so maybe it's not all that bad.

Azarenka's shotmaking is quite low percentage because she doesn't possess the same raw power as say a Williams sister or an Ivanovic. She needs to go much closer to the lines and hit over higher parts of the net much more often than those aforementioned. This means her game probably requires a whole lot of upkeep, and alot of focus. Her semi-final match against Kuznetsova had some breathtakingly intense baseline duels. While it wasn't the cleanest of matches, it was still dramatic and included some terrific shotmaking. It was further testament of how risky Azarenka needs to play it against the big guns. Even on mid-court put-away balls, she needs to paint sidelines in order to get the ball past Kuznetsova. One feels that her game is often played on a knifes edge; the smallest of changes could disrupt her rhythm and confidence and she'd start spraying errors.

Azarenka is very hard working, and is currently overachieving, as is La Borz, in this current lull at the top of the WTA. It's much better for the game for someone with a game like Vika's, than a game like La Borz, yeah? Either way Azarenka isin't going to be the star that the WTA are trying to advertise her as. Her unimaginative gamestyle, and along with the fact she's not the typical "it" girl means she's just not all that marketable.

Speaking of La Borz, the Danish ballbashing wannabe chalked up another big scalp in her career, beating Dementieva in the fourth round 7-5 6-4. Dementieva's joke of a mid-court game becomes very apparent in this match-up. She beats La Borz off the ground, easily, but she's absolutely clueless about how to finish off floaty junk. On how many occasions did she let defensive crap just float back to the baseline and just neutralise the point all over again? A ridiculous amount, that's for sure.

If anything, Dementieva's court sense has disimproved so far this year. So many times did she get drawn into lengthy backhand to backhand rallies when everyone knows La Borz can moonball, junkball or whatever deep 'til the end of time and a couple of hard, flat crosscourt forehands from Dementieva would have ended the point in 2, 3 maybe less shots. Dementieva should NEVER lose to La Borz, and that's the sad thing.

Sure a victory for La Borz, but I see no sign of her tennis improving. I just hope to God we avoid seeing her in the final against a Williams. The WTA is losing enough credit amongst its die-hards as it is.

Indian Wells Round Up

Vera Zvonareva won the ninth and biggest title of her career last Sunday in the Indian Wells BNP Paribas Open, beating Ana Ivanovic in the final 7-6 (5) 6-2.

The final was a wildly patchy affair due to the extremely windy conditions. Neither player could get into any sort of rhythm, and the rallies became comical with balls being blown in all sorts of directions. These kind of conditions don't suit anyone, but Ivanovic's more aggressive style would usually cope better in these situations. Ivanovic has enough firepower to hit though such windy conditions, and she displayed an urgency to move into the net as much as possible in order to shorten up the rallies. Zvonareva's game relies much more on accuracy of shot, and she put alot more topspin on the ball than Ivanovic, leaving the wind alot much chance to go into action.

What this win about Zvonareva highlighted was just how resourceful and adaptable she is. On numerous occasions, floating junk from Ivanovic would be made a million times trickier than it would normally be, yet Zvonareva had the skillful hands and necessary footwork to be able to deal with all manner of junk and send it back equally as tricky to deal with. Another thing to note was that Zvonareva managed to keep as many of her defensive moonballs as deep as possible. Only late or mid-way through the first set did she start to lose her depth on the ball and allowed Ivanovic to move up the court, run around to hit a forehand and with that the point was over.

Usually, Zvonareva's defense isin't something which wins her matches against balbashers like Ivanovic. Despite her quick movement and footspeed, and her good agility, Zvonareva's defensive skills usually just prolong the inevitable in the point, ather than allowing her to turn defensive positions in offensive ones. In this match though, her defensive moonballs were helped by the wind and most landed deep, neutralising the point again.

Zvonareva was much more economic in her serving patterns. She opted for a high percentage if first serves, rather than Ivanovic who tried to throw in as many big ones down the T as she could. This tactic was ultimately reckless and showed that Ivanovic never believed she could win this match from solely rallying alone in such conditions.

So, I feel that Zvonareva's excellent resourcefulness was the telling factor in such a wind assisted match. It would have been interesting to see the result without the win. Also, these windy conditions truly highlighted how god-awful Ivanovic's backhand technique really is. Several backhand drives which she framed were so badly struck that they bounced before the net. Yikes! Win or no wind, your technique should still prevent botches of such regularity.

Last game of the final:



Other notable things from Indian Wells included the slow, but sure rise of Azarenka. How high she will go is questionable, since who knows how low the competitiveness of the WTA will sink in the coming years? If one thing is for certain though it's that she is able to take some of the most crushing knocks as if they were nothing. Case in point was the Australian Open this year. After playing one of the best sets of tennis in her career in the fourth round against the eventual champion Serena Williams, she goes on in the second set to collapse on court, eventually having default the match, trailing 2-4 in the set. Lesser players might never have recovered from such a misfortune; especially considering the whole host of other setbacks which she has faced. But, no. In her next event, Memphis, she goes on to win the title, thrashing fellow youngster Wozniacki in the final.

Azarenka, who is usually commonly mis-labelled a brainless ballbasher, play a game more similar to Zvonareva rather than her "gruntsake" Sharapova. She doesn't possess enough firepower to be an elite ballbasher. She certainly wouldn't be able to outhit the likes of Serena Williams or Ivanovic from the back of the court. While she is certainly less resourceful than Zvonareva, and isin't as agile, she arguably strikes a cleaner ball and slightly more accurate. Their semi-final match in Indian Wells was certainly a disappointment. Azarenka might just have psyched herself out. She knows well that when she plays Vera, it's going to be a case of who can out manoeuvre who from the baseline and since she doesn't possess the same defensive skills as Zvonareva, she is forced to take more risks in rallies in order to stay on the offense. When they played however, I believe she took all these factors to their logical extreme. She went for way too many low percentage winners. Very few worked because her footwork, which is usually quite sharp, was fairly lackadaisical especially on her backhand side, where on several occasions, she lunged without moving her legs for wide backhands.

Zvonareva didn't play particularly well in this match either, but whenever Azarenka had a chance, she either came up with a big serve, or a frivolous unforced error was thrown in from the opposition. Azarenka obviously still doesn't have faith in herself that she can outlast Zvonareva in rallies, and this shows in their head-to-head, four meetings and zero sets dropped from Zvonareva.

Azarenka beat soon-to-be number one in the quarter-finals, notching up her biggest win the date. Arguably the best match of a drab tournament.

Following on from the last post, Vaidisova watch is now in action. It's baby steps for the former serial tanker. In a match which undoubtedly featured two of the most successful useless returners of serve in game, possibly ever (?), she beat Krajicek in straight sets. After another (semi-shock) win over the seeded, elder Bondarenko sister Alona, she bowed out in two sets to the ancient veteran Jill Craybas. I saw the win over Bondarenko was a semi-shock because Alona doesn't play the type of game which bothers Nicole all that much. Alona is content to play solid, sensible defense from the baseline at all time and likely rarely tried to exploit Nicole's glaring weaknesses and the former was free to dictate the match from the baseline without having to play too much outside her comfort zone. Analysing the match statistics (hugely informed, of course), Nicole's problem so far in this mini-comeback is her first serve percentage. In her matches against Bondarenko and Craybas, the percentage stayed mainly between 50 percent and 40% throughout the entire match. While her second serve is reliable and effective, a percentage like this wasn't going to work against Craybas who has a decent return-of-serve, combined with a passable power game which sees her taking the ball very early from inside the baseline as much as possible.

So is this the start of her rise back up?

It was the other half of the Radwanska clan which was making all he noise in Indian Wells. Urszula Radwanska beating wannabe teen phenom Michelle Larcher de Brito in three-sets in the first round, beafore beating the sixth seed Kuznetsova in three sets. She suffers from the same problem as most other youngsters around he age; tries to punch above her weight. She hits an effective ball of both sides because she has the ability to keep it deep and rarely drops it short. She can keep the ball deep, and neither of her wings are loopy or wholly ineffective. Her problem is a lack of a big weapon. She obviously has yet to realise what the strengths and weaknesses in her game are at this point. She goes for winners which she isin't really capable of hitting. She obviously doesn't possess enough firepower to hit anyone who isin't a complete hack off the court, so why on earth would she try against a top 20 player?

The technique on her forehand looks quite funky. It is a short swing, with alot of wrist action before the point of impact, which makes it hard to read. A bit like Chakvetadze's in that sense. The swing on her backhand was similarly short, yet looked alot more textbook. While she clearly doesn't have the same sort of touch that her sister does, she tried an abundance of dropshots with a 50/50 success rate. I honestly don't think she has figured out yet what type of a player she is, so how can I? Also she isin't well built for tennis. Her frame is long and slight and in the tough heat of Indian Wells, she was visibly struggling in the latter stages of the second set against Wozniacki. That is something she is going to have to look at developing.

As for Wozniacki, she still plays the same as she always has done, and her problems are very much still the same. Her technique is so rudimentary that she really would be incapable of being a ballbasher. Instead, she plays a high-percentage counter punching game, keeping an immaculate length mixed in with a bit of junk here and there. She reads the game well, along with good anticipation and excellent reflexes, she maximises what she can do, which in some ways is commendable. On the other hand, her game is just downright boring. It is argued that her game is clever and full of dimensions, but it isin't really. Her dimensions include: baseline grinding, counter punching, baseline grinding, baseline grinding, random bit of junk, random shift in direction, counter punching, baseline grinding, baseline grinding...........

It's not a case of her choosing just to moonball, junkball and stand so far behind the baseline in general because she lacks confidence or something of this notion. Her technique simply isin't good enough to execute an effective, consistent power game. Players don't just decide not to ballbash because they believe it's beneath their intelligence or something. They probably just don't have the ability.

Just because she's incapable of hitting outright winners from the baseline against even scrubs and needs about 55675656531 extra shots to finish points off, doesn't mean her game is full of "dimensions".

A "pusher" may be a slight dramatisation, but usually against lower ranked scrubs, she plays extremely passively, rarely looks to dictate and wins mainly on her ability to to keep the ball deep and eventually outlast her less consistent opponents in rallies. She doesn't possess any great dimensions to her game, despite the popular mis-informed belief. She can't volley to save her life, and her little random junky shots that are thrown in from time to time are a side-effect of her ugly technique, rather that any tactical prowess.

Another thing to note is that is her mid-court game is useless.

I refer to her a "La Borz", and that is how it shall remain from now on in this blog.

The plethora of early casualties wasn't all that surprising. The BYE's which the top seeds get often leave them cold against opponents who could possibly have several matches under their belts. Dementieva's loss to Cetkovska is still perplexing, however. Cetkovska has absolutely no weapons, and she does nothing at all better than Dementieva (save for maybe tactical awareness, but well who doesn't have that over Dementieva?). While this result may be what Dementieva calls a tank-job, it's still worrying that her career goals are still so randomly deluded. Last season she organised her whole year around winning an Olympic medal, which nobody gave a damn about but her, and before that she was dead set on giving her life to win the Fed Cup. While her new current goal, becoming number one, doesn't seem as bizarre, the means by which she seems to want to achieve this are just plain stupid. Instead of winning a slam, and becoming the number one player naturally and unquestionably, she has opted to just hog as much as possible and reach the summit by default almost.

Jankovic now seems content on being the new highly ranked punchbag of the tour. Her lack of interest in her game continues.

Last but not least, Pavlyuchenkova had her breakthrough event in Indian Wells, making the semi-final before losing to Ivanovic. She looked like a complete world beater against Jankovic in the second round, but at this point, Jankovic would make any competant ballstriker look like a potential number one. Again, when facing another puffballer, A. Radwanska in the quarter-finals, some of her shotmaking looked bigger than it actually is. She hits a clean, deep ball off both sides. Her backhand is much steadier than her forehand. Decent first serve, but her second serve seems unreliable in tight situations. Her movement was her biggest ailment. Against Ivanovic, one big forehand and that was it. Her defensive game is mediocre at best. I guess much hard work will have to be put in on that front. I'd say future top 20, but not much more.

Monterrey Round Up; Indian Wells Preview

Bartoli wins the third title of her career, beating Na Li in the Monterrey final.


Unsure of Bartoli's form leading into the event, it would have been tricky to pin-point her as the eventual winner; added to the fact that her recent record in WTA finals has been nothing short of dire, losing to the likes of Aleksandra Wozniak in Stanford last year for example. When Bartoli is playing well, she makes an extremely high percentage of flat, well-placed first serves. Against such an "all-or-nothing" returner such as Li, this proved quite a decisive factor in he final. Certainly in the final and semi-final against Li and Zheng respectively, they both found it tough to break Bartoli because she was giving away little chance for either of them to attack her second serves.


Bartoli's timing off the ground is nothing short of exceptional. Her semi-final against Jie Zheng featured some of the most laser-like groundstroke duels imaginable. Both refused to stand retreat behind the baseline in rallies, with neither wanted to give any ground away. The reflexes and overall hand-eye co-ordination needed to play at such a hectic pace from inside the baseline, are astonishing. Their semi-final was arguably the highest quality match of the week. Full of flairsome, explosive winners from the baseline. Overall, Bartoli just seemed in better form than Zheng, and her serve is what set her apart in the end.


The other semi-final, Na Li simply overpowered Iveta Benesova. Benesova plays a fairly low percentage game. She doesn't have an awesome amount of firepower from the baseline, and she doesn't have the defense required to be a successful counter-puncher. Therefore, she needs to take alot of risks in her shot making in order for her game to be effective against competent opposition such as Na Li. She needs to go much closer to the lines and more regularly over the higher part of the net much Li possesses much more raw firepower than Benesova, thus doesn't have to go as close to the lines in her shotmaking, nor over the high part of the net. Point in case, even Li hitting as hard as she could straight down the middle of the court was just too much for Benesova to handle.


The difference in the final against Bartoli for Li, was that Bartoli could soak up Li's pace much better from the baseline. Li doesn't possess the angles in her groundstrokes to take Bartoli out of her comfort zone, so Li's straight, hard drives straight down the court just gave Bartoli rhythm.

Benesova just couldn't handle Li's pace, nor could she exceed it. In contrast, Bartoli was able to live on the baseline with Li and use the pace she was getting, to out-manoeuvre Li.

Small (bad quality) video of Bartoli's final exploits:





This week: Indian Wells



Draw



(1)Safina - BYE

Pironkova def. Erakovic 6-4 6-1

Govortsova def Keothavong 2-6 6-3 6-1

(28)Peng - BYE


(24)A. Bondarenko - BYE

Vaidisova def (WC)Krajicek 6-3 6-4

Craybas def (WC)Dokic 6-4 6-2

(16)Medina Garrigues - BYE


(10)Bartoli - BYE

Peer def. K. Bondarenko 6-2 6-1

Makarova def Dechy 3-6 6-1 6-3

(19)Chakvetadze - BYE


(32)Cirstea - BYE

Vesnina def. Lisicki 7-6(4) 7-5

(Q)Shvedova def Kudryavtseva 6-4 6-2

(8)Azarenka - BYE


(4)Zvonareva - BYE

Chan def. (Q)Ruano Pascual 6-4 6-1

Kvitova def Parmentier 6-3 6-2

Benesova - BYE


(17)Mauresmo - BYE

Groenefeld def. Niculescu 6-3 6-0

Li def. Tanasugarn 6-4 6-4

(13)Schnyder - BYE


(9)Wozniacki - BYE

Bacsinszky def. Arvidssson 6-2 6-3

Razzano def. (Q)Rodina 6-3 6-4

(18)Kanepi - BYE


(29)Suarez Navarro - BYE

(WC)Glatch def (Q)Dubois 6-3 6-2

(WC)U. Radwanska def. (Q)Larcher de Brito 4-6 6-2 6-4

(6)Kuznetsova - BYE


(5)Ivanovic - BYE

(Q)Yakimova def. (Q)Lepchenko 6-4 6-1

Mattek-Sands def Garbin 6-4 6-4

(31)Dulko - BYE(20)


Sugiyama - BYE

(Q)Haynes def. (WC)Tomljanovic 7-5 6-2

(WC)Mirza def Koryttseva 2-6 6-3 6-2

Pennetta - BYE


(15)Zheng - BYE

Dushevina def. (Q)Martic 6-4 6-3

Vinci def. Morita 6-3 6-4

(23)Bammer - BYE


(30)Hantuchova - BYE

Wickmayer def Rybarikova 6-3 6-2

(Q)Cetkovska def. (Q)Foretz 6-2 7-5

(3)Dementieva - BYE


(7)A. Radwanska - BYE

Stosur def Schiavone 6-1 6-4

Safarova def (WC)Oudin 6-3 6-1

(25)Wozniak - BYE


(22)Szavay - BYE

Gallovits def Kirilenko 3-6 7-5 7-5

Zakopalova def. (Q)Barrois

(11)Cornet - BYE


(14)Cibulkova - BYE

Llagostera Vives def Zahlavova Strycova 7-6(5) 7-5(9)

Paszek def Santangelo 6-3 6-2

(21)Kleybanova - BYE


(27)Errani - BYE(WC)

Knapp def (WC)King 6-2 6-1

Pavlyuchenkova def. Domachowska 6-1 6-3

(2)Jankovic - BYE


First round matches have all been completed. Notable results so far:


Vaidisova def Krajicek 6-3 6-4 - One fallen teen supernova, against another fallen semi-teen supernova. Just weeks ago, Vaidisova looked as though she had basically thrown her career away after a dire and uninspiring straight-sets loss to journey woman Loit at the Paris Indoors. However, in the past month, Nicole has been reunited with her former coach and step-father Alex Kodat, and has seemingly regained her dwindling motivation for the sport.


Krajicek, who made the quarter-finals of Wimbledon back in 2007, has seen her form dissipate dramatically over the past two years almost, yet going into this match, her form was the better of the two, and it still appeared as though she cared about tennis.


This match undoubtedly featured some of the worst return of serving imaginable. Both possess passable to wretched defensive skills. Both have big serve, but for different reasons (Vaidisova's is supremely well placed and modertely paced; it is practically unreadable. Krajicek just has a big flat first) Nicole's quality of groundstroke is just much better than Krajicek's though and that was undoubtedly a huge key in this match. Either that or it was just a case of who was "least bad" at returning the others serve.


Going forward, Vaidisova actually has quite a good draw. A. Bondarenko has such a consistent game, yet posts such inconsistent results. Nicole leads their head-to-head 1-0 and they play later today. Others in that section include Medina Garrigues, and top seeded Dinara Safina who is currently coming off a second round loss in Dubai in her last event. It's not completely inconceivable that Nicole could have a decent run, but quite unlikely. Let's wait and see what her match against Bondarenko brings first.


U. Radwanska def Larcher de Brito 4-6 6-2 6-4 - The immensely hyped Larcher de Brito goes out to the younger, less experienced, less accomplished Radwanska sister in three-sets. Larcher de Brito, now 16, made waves in Miami last year when she beat Agnieszka Radwanska in Miami, yet her results so far in her career have continually fluctuated. How much longer until the weight of pressure from critics that she is unlikely to become the future elite player that everyone had rashly predicted a year or two ago gets to her?



Closing thoughts:


So who will win Indian Wells? Well, the safe bet would be put on the top two seeds in the third quarter, Dementieva and Ivanovic. Dementieva leads her head-to-head with Ivanovic 4-0, with matches on three different surfaces. Dementieva is the clear favourite for the tournament so? Perhaps, although her form so far this year has been solid, rather than spectacular. In none of the matches she has played this year did she play consistently stellar tennis. She has showed patches of great tennis, but the timing on her backhand in particular has been lacking and the continual problems of her playing tactically brain-dead in tight situations remains. Still you can't deny her record this year has been very good up until now. She has only lost to both Williams sisters and Mauresmo, and with two of them not in the draw, her chances of lifting the title seem realistic at least.


Ivanovic seemed in much better form in Dubai than she had been for nearly all of the second-half of '08. Big problem for her is Dementieva, who she could possibly meet in the fourth round and who is a terrible match-up for her. Ivanovic can't live in hectic paced baseline rallies with Dementieva; fails miserably whenever she tries infact. Dementieva has the excellent return-of-serve is soak up Ivanovic's pressure of a big first serve, has the defensive skills to turn defensive situations into offensive ones, and her forehand is big enough to hit through Ivanovic from behind the baseline. She's doesn't have the mid-court game to deal with Ivanovic's junkballing but that's another story. Alot of this match-up depends on how big Ivanovic serve and how well Dementieva is hitting from the baseline. It wouldn't surprise me if Ivanovic finally got her first win over her bête noire in Indian wells, going on to bluff her way to another big title, beating her "bitches" Jankovic and Kuznetsova in the semi-finals and the final respectively.


Safina isin't playing well right now. She hasn't played well this year so far to be honest. Her final runs in Sydney and at the Australian Open were due more to good, open draws rather than anything to do with great form. Her draw is great again at Indian Wells, despite a potentially tricky opening match against giant-killer Pironkova. She looks set to reach the top of the WTA rankings in the coming month, but will the pressure get to her? Her first match against Pironkova will tell alot. Pironkova with wins over Venus Williams and Ivanovic at big events won't choke if she gets into a winning position and relishes the big stage. If Safina is to lose early, this is where it will happen. If not, her draw is great and could make another final this year, by default even.


Other tournament hopefuls include: perennial bridesmaid Kuznetsova and former number one Jankovic who seems to be suffering from the backlash which she received when she reached the rankings summit without a slam to her name, and is now seemingly playing in auto-pilot, in limbo as to whether she cares about the outcome of her dreary matches or not.


A. Radwanska, Zvonareva and the newly rejuvenated Mauresmo fill the chasing pack.

Junior Player Reviews. Installment #4 - Bojana Jovanovski

Part 4:

Bojana Jovanovski (SRB): Junior Career High Ranking -#5
WTA Career Ranking High - #286

These notes are taken from her match against Laura Robson in the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon Junior Event.

Jovanovski has the exact same look and build as Victoria Azarenka when she first burst onto the scene.

She plays like an impatient ball basher most of the time, and hits a very clean, flat ball off the ground. She hits some explosive winners from time to time, yet lacks real, raw power. Similar maybe to Azarenka in that respect aswell. Some footwork problems are evident, and her defensive skills are simply not up to scratch.

Her backhand is somewhat more consistent than her forehand. She doesn't hit as many explosive winners off it, but doesn't miss as many either. She needs time to set it up though, and her lazy footwork can often let her down off both sides.

Her short angled forehand inside-out over the highest part of the net is really quite breathtaking. It's extremely low % but she makes it a surprising amount of time, despite going over the high part of the net on pretty much each one she tries. Her forehand however, tends to break down in high pace baseline exchanges because she often catches it late, she has to improvise, rushing her swing and it end ends up flying into the trams. Improved footwork would probably alleviate this problem to a certain extent.

Her defensive game is similar to Rus's in the sense that she's fine in left-right-left-right baseline exchanges, yet struggles to ever get back into the rally once she's on the defense. Her determination to run everything down is evident but she just isin't particularly fast, and doesn't deal with deep low balls very well. Again, similar to Rus she really struggles with any sudden shifts in angles. Unlike Rus however, Bojanovski's shouldn't really have to retreat so far behind the baseline when she's not dictating play. Her swings are fairly compact, and she doesn't appear to have any notable timing issues, so maybe in a year or two this little kink shall be ironed out of her game.

Her return-of-serve is a definite improvement on Kerkhove, Hercog and Rus. Makes a high percentage of returns (even against lefty Robson whose serve can be almost untouchable against many at junior level). She's not exceptionally aggressive off of it, but gives away few points with cheap unforced errors at the same time. It doesn't really set up her game though.

Her 1st serve serve is very flat strike. It's not huge but it's no slouch and actually had something of a game plan behind it, in the deuce court at least. The main plan was to hit the slider out-wide, get a mid court ball, on her backhand usually and go for the cross-court winner. Her best serve is probably big, flat one down the T in the deuce court. That's where all her aces come from. Apart from Robson's wild return-of-serve errors however, her serve didn't really get her THAT many cheap points. 2nd serve is Camille Pin-esque(verging on club level). One of the reasons why she stands so far behind the baseline at times is probably because of her 2nd serve leaves her in terrible court position most of the time.

There was little evidence that Jovanovski has any sort of a mid-court game as she barely ventured into he net. From what I've hear, she was absolutely clueless on court in her doubles matches throughout the week.

Bottom Line on Jovanovski:

A Poor man's Azarenka, in my honest opinion. Some of her shot making is scintillating but undoubtedly low percentage coupled with some lazy footwork, is a bit of a danger. Her serve isin't big enough currently to rely on alot of cheap points, so will have to rely on sheer ball bashing quality more often than not to win matches, yet right now she just doesn't have the raw firepower. Can still improve surely, and looks relatively tenacious, but we'll see. Her game style is the kind the WTA tour needs more of. I can't really predict a future ranking, but I'd like to think the top 50 is achievable.

Acapulco Round Up; Monterrey Open Draw/Preview

Acapulco

As predicted, Venus wins her first round match, then goes on to win the event, beating Pennetta in the final 6-1 6-2.

Maybe this more consistent approach Venus is taking on her ground stroke game will be more suited to clay courts than her more explosive, shot making baseline offense. Certainly, on a relatively slow, heavy clay court like those in Acapulco, Venus' serve was still hugely effective. Her big flat serves down the T in the deuce court, and out-wide in the advantage court were monstrous in the final, and Pennetta had no answers.

Trying to hit clean winners past Venus on a clay court seemed like quite a task in the final. Pennetta is no pusher, yet she found herself having to take many more risks than she's comfortable with, burying herself in unforced errors in the process. I had stated last week that Pennetta's current form was a current unknown, and I'm still unconvinced that she's playing all that well. She struggled past the likes of Petra Cetkovska, and in the final she was quite erratic. In baseline exchanges, she would leak random errors of both sides early in rallies. Her footwork wasn't as sharp as it had been at the end of 2008. Her shot selection was questionable. She went for too many low % winners, seemingly because she never trusted her own ground strokes to hold up in long rallies against Venus from the baseline so ending the points as quick as possible seemed like the only viable option.



This match goes to show how well Pennetta has to play to beat Venus.



Acapulco Final - Last two games + Trophy Presentation:








Another prediction realised; Carla Suarez Navarro's fall back into oblivion after her excellent Australian Open run. Is anyone still holding out hope that she can become a consistent world beater. Second round, straight set losses to the likes of Barbora Zahlavova Strycova are just dire.





Monterrey Open - Mexico



It's an International event, same as Acapulco (i.e Mickey Mouse). Already, the top seed, Agnieszka Radwanska lost in the first round to Na Li, 6-0 in the 3rd set (ouch). It's something of a surprise considering Randwanska is one the biggest hoggers of International events on the tour, but Li notorious for having a wild, unpredictable game. She's a shot maker, and has beaten pretty much anyone who is anyone on the tour today.



I didn't see the match, however I can only imagine that Radwanska was hit clean off the court in the third set. Her generally puffball ground strokes, mixed together with Li's explosive, unpredictable game and Randwanska's wobbly current form meant this match was very likely a potential upset. No doubt that a red hot Li would enjoy having the time to set up on her shots and tee off effortlessly against Radwanska's "junk".



This result leaves the draw looking a bit like this:



Na Li (CHN) def (1)Agnieszka Radwanska (Pol) 7-6(5) 4-6 6-0

Jarmila Groth (SVK) vs. Petra Cetkovska (CZE)

Lucie Safarova (CZE) def (WC) Melissa Torres Sandoval 6-4 6-1

(8) Maria Kirilenko (RUS) def Marina Erakovic (NZL) 6-4 6-3



(3) Flavia Pennetta (ITA) vs. Jill Craybas (USA)

Anna-Lena Grönefeld (GER) vs. Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova

(CZE)Roberta Vinci (ITA) vs. Arantxa Rus (NED)

(6) Iveta Benesova (CZE) vs. Shahar Peer (ISR)



(7) Gisela Dulko (ARG) def Nathalie Dechy (FRA) 6-4 7-5

Mariya Koryttseva UKR) vs. Lenka Weinerova (SVK)

Melinda Czink (HUN) vs. Alla Kudryavtseva (RUS)

(4) Jie Zheng (CHN) def (WC) Urszula Radwanska (POL) 7-6 4-6 6-0



(5) Agnes Szavay (HUN) vs. Pauline Parmentier

(FRA)Klara Zakopalova (CZE) vs. Vania King (USA)

Magdalena Rybarikova (SVK) vs. Edina Gallovits (ROM)

(2) Marion Bartoli (FRA) vs. Michaela Krajicek (NED)





With Radwanska now out, it's tough to predict who will win the events. Second seeded Marion Bartoli is much much suited to faster/mid-paced surfaces. She thrives on taking the ball early and slower surfaces mess up her timing somewhat. Her draw is tricky, with former teenage hopeful Krajicek in the first round, following by up-and-coming Slovak, Rybarikova in the second round. Overall, I wouldn't be surprised if she made it to the final however.



Pennetta is not playing that well in my opinion, but she may have played herself into some form with a couple of tough matches last week, and now her quarter of the draw holds a couple of slumping players and players who she has a good record against. Na Li may continue her good run of form though. I think the winner of the potential Pennetta v Li semi-final will win the title.



Dulko is a savvy player. She won't power anyone off court, yet she is extremely tactically aware and is able to change up the paces in rallies, throw in short angles, move her opponents around, combined with being able to set up effective ground stroke plays. She lost early in Acapulco last week however, so her form is somewhat suspect.



Agnes Szavay, who this time last year was still ranked inside the top 20, and had already won a then Tier II event, along with a quarter-final appearance at the US Open, and wins over Dementieva and Jankovic, is still "slumping". It's fair to say however, that her sophomore slump is last much too long to be considered a mere slump. She just can't compete at the highest level for an extended period of time, and her serve is wildly inconsistent now so she can longer rely on gaining a couple of cheap points every few games even against the most hapless of scrubs. Playing down in Tiers hasn't helped much; She's still losing to everyone and anyone. Therefore, her slump is obviously just her normal level, and her wonder run back in late 2007 was something of an exception.

Junior Player's Reviews. Installment #3 - Arantxa Rus

Part 3 of my junior reviews:

Arantxa Rus (NED) Junior Career High Ranking No. 1

WTA Career High Ranking No. 149

She played in one of the better junior matches I had seen in the Wimbledon Junior event last year, against Tamaryn Hendler in the quarter-finals. She's relatively tall, with a slim build. Her build however, does offer a few co-ordination problems. Her lefty game is nowhere near as smooth as say Laura Robson's, for example, yet it can be quite effective. Big plus is, she's not as useless as Hercog.

She is something of a clean ball striker. Her forehand is very unorthodox. Yes, she has the trademark wide, lefty swing, but her technique on it verges on awkward. It isin't particularly smooth and is certainly the heavier of her two sides. Her forehand down-the-line is her deadliest shot. When she times is properly, which is only about half the time, is zings down the court, deep and is either a winner, or gives her a short, easy mid-court ball begging to be put-away. Her cross-court forehand looked better than it actually is due to Hendler's poor reactions and lack of an explosive first step. The follow through on her technique is often non-existent; merely a flick of the wrist alot of the time. Flat, cross-court, deep drives almost always draw a wild unforced errors out of her forehand.

Her forehand makes her game look gawky and un-coordinated, yet she does have some quite steady aspects to her game

The backhand is arguably her better shot in comparison with the forehand. It's more reliable, at least. It's a cleaner hit more often than not, the back swing is much more compact and gets much better depth consistently in compared to her forehand. All of this is relative however, since it's only when she's in the right position that any of this matters. Usually her rudimentary footwork and fair defensive skills make her court position in high pace baseline exchanges terrible. She's helpless when balls comes deep to her feet on either forehand or backhand, usually shanks them into the net or offers up a puffball, leaving her a sitting duck against any competent sort of ball striker.

She's not particularly agile. Defense is OK when she's in left-right-left-right baseline exchanges, but any sudden sharp angles and the point's over; same with acute changes in direction. Due to her large swings and below average footwork, she usually needs to play well behind the baseline to accommodate this, negating the effectiveness of her shots to a certain extent. Yes, Nicole Vaidisova made the top 10 with a similar approach, but Rus' quality of grounstroke just isin't as accurate nor as consistently aggressive to have the same success with such a tactic.

Her return-of-serve is better than both Kerkhove and Hercog, but still leaves a little to be desired. It usually consists on her taking big cuts at everything, making her return-of-serve game wholly unpredictable and inconsistent. Even against a mid-paced server like Hendler, she had to stand well behind the baseline on both 1st, and 2nd serves to accommodate, both her large swings and aggressive game plan. Alot of her returns went straight down the middle of the court back at the server, however. They weren't quite as conservatively placed a say Kerkhove's for example, but still predictable and conservative.

It's clear from watching Rus v Hendler, and other Robson matches, that junior girls don't return lefty serves well. Rus's service pattern are what you'd expect for a lefty. She hits the slider out wide in the advantage court, and down-the-line in the Deuce court about 80% of the time. Even though Hendler knew it was going there, she could do little with it. Occasionally comes up with some flat one's on both sides, usually aces because the returner is always looking for the out-wide one. She couldn't hit a 2nd serve to a right-hander's forehand to save her life. She doesn't take advantage of her lefty 1st serve nearly as much as she should. Slider out-wide in the advantage court pretty much always comes back cross-court and fairly short, yet she rarely goes for the space, often hitting it hard back to her opponent and in turn, neutralising the rally. It never appeared as though she had any discernible game plan behind her serve either.

Bottom line on Rus:

She has enough in her game for the top 100. Much work to be done if she's looking for more. Undoubtedly, she can develop her game around the lefty serve. Right now, she doesn't capitalise on nearly as much as she should. Maybe she could hone in on the development of her net game, go for the advantage court slider serve out-wide, back it up with a inside-out forehand into the corner to knock off a volley. That's really where I see her doing the most damage. Her ground game just isin't big enough, or consistent enough to rely on her ball bashing skills from the back of the court. Simply doesn't have enough raw firepower to win matches alone on that merit on the main tour. Alot of things to be improved from Rus, but I don't think she's certainly got potential. Future top tenner, no. Possible top 50 player, sure. With work, of course.

Acapulco Draw.

Main draw for the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL (International Tier i.e Mickey Mouse) event in Acapulco, Mexico:

(1) Venus Williams vs. Nuria Llagostera Vives
Greta Arn(Q) vs. Edina Gallovits
Agnes Szavay(LL) def. (WC) Anna Orlik 7-5 7-5
Roberta Vinci def. (6) Lucie Safarova 6-4 6-4

(3) Carla Suarez Navarro vs. Viktoriya Kutuzova
Barbora Zahlavova Strycova def. Andreja Klepac 2-6 6-1 6-4
Maret Ani vs. Patricia Mayr
Ioana Raluca Olaru(Q) vs. (5) Gisela Dulko

(7)Tathiana Garbin vs. Jill Craybas
Mathilde Johansson(WC) def. Rossana De Los Rios 6-4 6-1
Klara Zakopalova def. Emilie Loit 4-6 6-4 7-5
(4) Iveta Benesova def. Olga Savchuk

(8)Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez vs. Arantxa Parra Santonja
Petra Cetkovska def. Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-2 6-2
Pauline Parmentier def. (WC) Melissa Torres Sandoval 6-2 6-3
Mariya Koryttseva vs. (2) Flavia Pennetta

* (Q) = Qualifier
* (LL) = Lucky Loser

Key Points about the draw:

This would be just another lower tier clay court event if Venus Williams wasn't in the draw. It will be interesting to see how Venus transitions from a mid-paced hard court in Dubai, to a clay court almost on the other side of the world, having just a two day break. Her first round will be telling against something of a clay court specialist in Llagostera Vives. If she wins the match, I predict she will win the whole event.

Flavia Pennetta is the defending champion in Acapulco. She has had a stuttering start to the year so far. She lost handily to Medina Garrigues(ESP) in the 3rd round of the Australian Open, and despite beating both Mauresmo and Cornet in the Italy v France Fed Cup tie, she suffered a shock defeat in Bogota last week to little known Masa Zec Peskiric. Her form is too scratchy right now to back her to win the event. Winning the last three out of four matches played against Venus means that she is Williams' biggest threat.

Carla Suarez Navarro, who beat Venus in Australia this year and ended up reaching the quarter-finals, seems back to her "normal" level. It was the same story last year. Makes the quarter-finals at the French Open, seemingly out of nowhere, then for the rest of the year, does absolutely nothing of significance. Suarez Navarro playing aggressive, accurate, heavy topspin, flairsome tennis is the exception, rather than the rule.

6th seeded Safarova lost yesterday to Vinci. This opens up Venus' draw even more.

Kutuzova has no qualified for her second tournament in succession. Is she finally living up to some of her potential? In her last two matches in qualifying, Kutuzova saved at least 11 match points. Quite a feat.

Link to Venus' blog from Acapulco - http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/1/newsroom/stories/?ContentID=3024

Junior Player Reviews. Installment #2 - Polona Hercog

Part 2 of my junior player reviews. Next up:



Polona Hercog (Slo) Junior Career Ranking High of No. 8
WTA Career High Ranking of No. 204

Just one match seen of Hercog, against Romana Tabakova in the Quarter Finals of the Wimbledon Junior event in 2008. Did see one or two doubles match of her too, though. I was thoroughly underwhelmed, however. There had been a small amount of hype surrounding Hercog on forums around the net, but she definitely failed to live up to expectations.


The positives to start with. She's certainly the most varied junior I watched at this years Championship. She has something resembling a mid-court/transition game; can play a biting backhand slice and has a textbook technique on serve. That's where my praise ends.


Her overall groundstroke game is pretty much useless. So much so, that Tabakova was put under little pressure from the back of the court and Hercog could barely exploit the obvious weaknesses in her game. She can't control baseline exchanges and isin't quite pugnacious enough in defence to be an effective counter puncher.


She's another Euro youngster bogged down by a loopy, ineffective topspin forehand. Struggles immensely to hit outright winners from the baseline, meaning she usually has to hit about 4 or 5 extra shots to finally end a point, even against an average defender like Tabakova. Her tactical play on the forehand, is usually to hit three quarter length depth cross-court continually until she gets a short ball, which she can attack or move into the net on, for an easy put-away. Problem for her is, she'll probably get overpowered before she has any chance of executing anything of the sort. She completely shanked a heap forehands due to her mildly extreme grip.


Avoids hitting a drive backhand like the plague. She'll run around it as much a possible, and often ends up playing the slice, mainly because her backhand, which ironically is probably a cleaner hit that her forehand, just isin't up to scratch for tour level. The game plan off the backhand is usually to hit a short angled slice cross-court, in the hope of getting a short easy put-away forehand in the service box. It is probably her best play.


Her return-of-serve is poor(yet again). Tabakova's serve, despite it's ugliness/technical flaws is a very good serve for junior level, but it's nowhere near as good as it appeared in this match. Hercog didn't even get a sniff of a break point. She has terrible reaction times, even worse than Kerkhove and more often than not, her reluctance to hit a backhand gets her in deep trouble, as her footwork just isin't good enough to let her play forehands, time after time on return. Shanked (horribly) dozens of Tabakova's flat 1st serves in the deuce court. Even her block return is a total shambles.


Her serve is textbook, but is somewhat predictable. Her most used serve is a out-wide semi-slider to the deuce court. Even though you know it's going there however, it's tough to do anything about it as it's supremely well placed. Flattens her 1st serve out alot more in the Ad court, again predominantly out-wide. 2nd serve kicker is so-so. Most often goes into the backhand of a right-hander and doesn't get it particularly deep, meaning it can be something of a sitting duck occasionally, meaning when she starts getting punished off it, she starts taking more risks = double faults.


She has a nice transition game, with decent technique on her volleys. She possesses terrible passing shots though; rarely made Tabakova play a volley in her guerrilla warfare attacks on the net.


Bottom line on Hercog;


Maybe one could argue that it was just a bad day at the office for Hercog but that doesn't explain her useless, loopy topspin forehand, or the fact that she has no real backhand drive. Certainly her potential is limited. I'm unsure of what kind of player she will develop herself to be. Seems destined for clay court lower Tiers, where she can probably hack it out with other loopy forehand scrubs. I'm guessing the top 100 is somewhat attainable with more work, but I doubt much else.