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by Christopher Gerby Martina Hingis vs. Serena Williams Singles: Final Centre Court Holding a three match winning streak over Martina Hingis, # 4 seed Serena Williams went into Sunday's final as the favorite over # 1 seed Martina Hingis, rankings be damned. Yours truly even put a Canadian buck on Williams in the press room pool. (Pick the winner and the total number of games -- whoever's closest gets the entire pot, which turned out to be $34. I opted for Serena in 20.) After a few games of monster hitting from the 18-year-old American, it looked as if the match would be more lopsided than any of us had bargained for. Williams broke Hingis with a big backhand winner down the line and uncorked a 174 km/h (108 miles per hour) ace to end Game 2. Serena thumped two forehand winners in a row to complete a break for 3-0, swatting the Hingis serve away like it was nothing. Hingis finally got things going in the right direction in Game 4, three times getting to break point. However, Williams has a knack for coming up with a big serve when she needs one -- the break points were saved by two aces and a first serve which Hingis returned long. Serena finally got to game point and launched an ace for 4-0. Looking more than a little overwhelemed by the powerful shots coming at her, Hingis was broken at love for 0-5. She got a break point in the sixth game, but Williams blasted a service winner and pumped her fist. Two points later, Serena's fifth ace of the day ended the 6-0 set after just 21 minutes. Hingis later likened the experience to being on a race track. "It was like Formula One; it was all the shots went zooming by me," she said, demonstrating with her hands. Williams continued the rout by breaking to open Set 2. Martina Hingis is a crafty competitor, though, and she began moving the ball around to good effect. When Williams pushed a backhand wide on break point, Hingis raised her arms in victory and got a big round of applause. Then she got a game point on her serve for the first time all afternoon and converted it for a 2-1 lead. Williams held at love for 2-2, but Hingis kept the ball deep in her second consecutive hold to 3-2. Some errors were starting to fly off the Williams racquet, but she was still serving bullets -- three aces in Game 6 evened the set at 3 games piece. Having put that ugly first set behind her, Hingis kept up her strong play in Game 7, holding serve with a delicate half-volley winner. The following game went to 30-30 and Williams self-destructed, double faulting and sending a forehand long. Hingis finally had a significant lead, going up 5-3 in the second set. Serena's game, meanwhile, was in freefall. She lost the set's final game at 15, a forehand error ending it 6 games to 3. Williams then called for the trainer to come out and treat her left foot. What at first looked like perhaps a bit of momentum-stopping gamesmanship turned out to be a case of sesamoiditis. For those of us without a background in sports medicine, that's the inflammation of a small bone on the base of the foot. "I got it last night against Arantxa," Williams would explain after the match. "Of all the pains, you know, you put up with a foot injury. I'd rather say I have a knee injury or something like that. I've never had this before." Williams went back out to start the third set, but clearly was not herself. She made four unforced errors in dropping her serve, then just started randomly slapping the ball around during Martina's love hold for 2-0. Game 3 was more of the same, with Williams unable to push off her left foot and control her shots. After being broken at 15 on a backhand error, Williams slowly walked to the net. Serena, Martina, and chair umpire Anne Lasserre-Ulrich had a very awkward looking little discussion before Lassere-Ulrich finally announced that Williams was retiring. After the players shook hands and parted ways, Martina looked to the crowd and shrugged her shoulders. It was far from the way she wanted to accomplish it, but Hingis nonetheless leaves with a successful defense of her du Maurier Open crown 0-6, 6-3, 3-0. (Oh, and in case you're wondering, a guy from L'Equipe was lucky enough to win the pool, nailing it right on the head -- Hingis in 18 games.) Serena Williams spoke some French in her post-match speech before giggling as she reverted back to her native tongue. "I'm on one leg here, but I really appreciate all the support," she told the crowd. "I love it here in Montreal." Martina Hingis managed to one-up her opponent by delivering an entire speech in smooth, confident French. Hingis insists she only speaks French "if I need to," but she did a fine job here, thanking her entourage, praising the city of Montreal, and honoring the sponsors (especially du Maurier, which has been forced to end its association with the tournament after this year). In the post-match press conference, Williams said she doesn't expect the injury to keep her out of the U.S. Open. She did, however, admit to being in a fair amount of pain. "I could feel it throbbing just sitting down. I figure if I'm walking it's going to be worse. So does it hurt a lot? Yeah, it hurts a lot." Taking her turn at the podium (which she took a nasty little slip on Saturday afternoon), Hingis summarized the unusual afternoon. "It was just like two different matches in a way. The first set, I barely had a chance and I also wasn't, like, making her play. At least in the second I just made her play a little bit more, you know, started reading whether she was going down the line or cross-court and also the serve." Asked if she had rather finish out the match than win it at 3-0, a grinning Hingis said, "I don't care. I have to play another doubles now and also I want to go home tonight." Halard-Decugis/Sugiyama vs. Hingis/Tauziat Doubles: Final Centre Court For the second day in a row, Hingis had approximately an hour of rest before returning to Centre Court for a doubles match. This time there was a title at stake, as Hingis and partner Nathalie Tauziat met Julie Halard-Decugis and Ai Sugiyama. They used to say that the best doubles team in the world was "John McEnroe and anybody." In the women's game right now, the best pairing very well may be Martina Hingis and anybody. So even though Halard-Decugis/Sugiyama were seeded first and Hingis/Tauziat seeded second, the smart money (not literally this time) was on the Swiss Miss to take home her second trophy of the day. Hingis and Tauziat didn't get off to a good start here, each netting volleys to fall behind 0-30 in the opening game. A pair of winning volleys from Sugiyama closed out a break of Hingis for 1-0. Halard-Decugis held at love for 2-zip, but then Hingis and Tauziat started making their volleys and got to 2-2. After Halard-Decugis hit an overhead smash in the fifth game, the ball jumped up and caught the brim of Tauziat's cap. Julie briefly held up her hand in apology, but did so with her back turned to Nathalie. The bad blood between those two got boiling when Tauziat wrote a no-holds-barred book about life on the WTA Tour. She managed to anger her peers so much that Halard-Decugis said she would refuse to play in the Olympics if Tauziat was named to the French team. Halard-Decugis won that battle, but Tauziat (and Hingis) won Game 5 for a 3-2 lead. An exchange of holds took the set to 4-3. Sugiyama was then broken at love, with Tauziat putting away an overhead for a 5-3 lead. Hingis took care of matters from there, serving out the 6-3 set at 15. Tauziat was the first player to drop serve in the second set, sending a forehand wide on break point to give the top seeds a 3-1 lead. Halard-Decugis pumped her fist after a nifty forehand winner in a hold for 4-1. Hingis, Sugiyama, and Tauziat all held at 15, so the French/Japanese tandem had a 5-3 lead. Hingis and Tauziat valiantly tried to break back, Nathalie coming over her backhand to whack a pair of nice return winners. However, Tauziat lost the first break point with a wayward volley and Halard-Decugis saved the second with an ace. Two points later, a Hingis return of an Halard-Decugis first serve landed long of the baseline, wrapping up a 6-3 second set. Halard-Decugis and Sugiyama each tossed up winning topspin lobs in a well-played break of Hingis. But the French/Swiss pairing struck right back, breaking Halard-Decugis for 1-1. The set went with serve to 3-3, both French players scoring an ace along the way and Halard-Decugis fighting off the only break point. Tauziat had struggled in Game 6, but got a pat on the back from Hingis midway through Game 7, a love hold for 4-3. Halard-Decugis poached her way to a winning volley, ending a Sugiyama hold for 4-4. While the singles final had ended in a bittersweet anti-climax, the excitement was building as the doubles final closed in on its conclusion. Hingis showed off her remarkable hands with a winning drop volley, closing out a hold for 5-4. Two winning Tauziat volleys and a winning Hingis return brought up double match point against the Halard-Decugis serve. However, Julie put up an effective lob for 30-40 and Ai got her team to deuce with a forceful backhand volley. Sugiyama excitedly pumped her fist, but Tauziat immediately earned a third match point by whipping a backhand return. Halard-Decugis could no longer prolong the inveitable -- she sent a forehand pass wide to finish the 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 thriller. Not all that surprisingly, Halard-Decugis and Tauziat made no attempt to shake each other's hands at the end of the match. Tauziat instead engaged her young doubles partner in a warm embrace. Julie Halard-Decugis and Nathalie Tauziat gave their post-match speeches in French, of course. Julie even dragged her Japanese partner up to the microphone for an attempt of her own, but "bonjour" and "merci beaucoup" was all an embarrassed Ai Sugiyama could come up with. The one English language speech was turned in by Martina Hingis, but the singles/doubles champion kept it brief, saying "I think I did enough talking already this afternoon." She did, however, take the time to thank Tauziat, calling her "a great champion" whom she has "learned a lot from." Three of us then secured a brief post-match interview with the winners. They confirmed to me that they'll be going back to their regular doubles partners (Alexandra Fusai for Tauziat; Mary Pierce for Hingis) at the U.S. Open. I asked if they might be getting back together for a few of the fall indoor tournaments and they seemed open to the idea. "Maybe, we'll see. I'll have to talk to Mary," said Hingis. "I actually don't know if she's going to play the U.S. Open. I hope she does." Tauziat chimed in: "We have to speak with our partners... Alexandra is not playing indoors because her singles ranking is down. I don't know what she's going to do. If we are free, then yes." Martina and Nathalie have the 2000 du Maurier Open doubles title...but will they win any of my all important, tournament-summarizing honors? MATCH OF THE WEEK: The resilient veteran trying to fend off the talented young challenger is a story older than tennis itself. Sabine Appelmans vs. Jelena Dokic on Monday was a great example. The left-handed Belgian may want to reconsider her retirement plans after gutting out a 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 win over the Aussie phenom. Other matches may have featured better play or greater atmosphere, but none could top this one for sustained drama. Runner-up: Martina Hingis and Sandrine Testud slugging it out for three sets in the quarterfinals. UPSET OF THE WEEK: Magdalena Maleeva's 4-3 win over an injured Lindsay Davenport doesn't count, but who would have predicted Maleeva's 6-3, 6-2 drubbing of Amanda Coetzer in the previous round? A real feather in the cap of the charismatic Bulgarian, who always seems to fare well in Canada. "I could not have expected to play any better," she said of the surprising second round win. HYPE OF THE WEEK: Nothing pleases the Montreal fans more than players speaking French. Alas, the brutal truth is that Serena Williams has a very limited command of the language and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario has never been close to fluent. It was nice to see them making the effort to parler en fracais, but Martina Hingis made them both look like amateurs in her trophy ceremony speech. Runner-up: the Williams vs. Kournikova match, a much-ballyhooed but ultimately one-sided dud. COMEBACK OF THE WEEK: A few armchair quarterbacks in the press box felt the Jennifer Capriati vs. Virginia Ruano-Pascual match was over when the Spaniard opened up a 4-1 lead in the final set. However, JenCap looked very determined as she stormed all the way back, winning the last five games and earning a spot in the third round. SHOT OF THE WEEK: Few moments in tennis can match the one where a player makes a good drop shot only to have her opponent scramble in and send back a spectacular winner. Martina Hingis turned in a few textbook examples this week, burning Nadejda Petrova and Sandrine Testud with her catlike quickness and uncanny racquet control. PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Any of the four dominant wins Serena Williams posted this week would qualify, but Serena's 6-0, 6-1 mugging of Amy Frazier was the best of the bunch. After slamming thunderbolt serves and groundstrokes all over Centre Court for 50 dominant minutes, even the hard-to-please Williams was content. "You should mark this date, because I'll probably never say this again, but I'm satisfied with the way I played." CHOKE OF THE WEEK: I didn't see any players really throw away a big lead this week, so the best example of choking I can think of was committed by Vanessa Webb. Under pressure to do well on her home soil, Webb missed virtually every important volley in her first round loss to Virginia Ruano-Pascual. FAN OF THE WEEK: Making a late run at this award was the woman who kept crying out Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario's name with all the pleading urgency one would usually reserve for shouting "I'm trapped in the well!" However, it's hard to top the young man who chanted "Schuber! Schuber!" to inspire the Barbara Schett/Anke Huber doubles team. BEST INTERVIEWEE: She's as arrogant as the day is long, but at least Serena Williams is arrogant in a playful, funny, forthcoming way. Her wit and willingness to talk about herself (sometimes in the third person) made the loquacious teen a reporter's dream. Runner-up: an affable, maturing Martina Hingis. WORST INTERVIEWEE: As for the other kind of arrogant... Sour and guarded, Anna Kournikova seems to regard her post-match interviews as unwelcome, unpleasant chores. After a couple rounds of listening to her stock answers and outright stonewalling, the feeling was mutual. STAR OF THE FUTURE: Coming through the qualifying in impressive fashion, Justine Henin went ahead to win a three-set thriller over Asa Carlsson and came within a game of ousting Lindsay Davenport. The aggressive young Belgian is unquestionably one to watch. Runner-up: Russian teenager Nadejda Petrova also qualified and flashed a powerful forehand. |