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by Prip The day started with Marcelo Rios playing against Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina. Smelling a potential upset, I tried to get into show court 2, but the stands were jam packed with people wanting to get a glimpse of the Chilean 12th seed. Seeing lines so long that only half the people waiting would probably get in before the match was over, I stood watching from the gap in a corner of the stands. The Argentine looked like he knew the opportunity had presented itself, and was ready to take it. The players were neck and neck in the first set, but the corner I was at soon got pretty crowded so I gave up and decided to watch something else instead. Meanwhile, Kveta Hrdlickova was having trouble with Rosanna de Los Rios who had made a splash onto the scene after leaving the tour for a while. The player from Paraguay had suddenly come from nowhere to qualify and then reach the 4th round at Roland Garros, taking Amanda Coetzer out on the way. The match started out pretty even games-wise, but the Paraguayan looked in control after a slow start. She ended up totally blitzing the Czech, taking control of points early and capitalizing on the lackluster tennis her opponent was displaying. Rosanna looked fully confident as she dropped a mere 3 games in moving to the second round, where she is due to meet Lindsay Davenport who had lost one game more in her first-round victory over Paola Suarez. Out on Court 3, the second player for Croatia, Iva Majoli, had a daunting task ahead of her. Anne Kremer, sole representitive of Luxembourg in the tennis, is no pushover. Anne took the title in Auckland to start the year off (defeating Cara Black in the final), but had mixed results after that, only picking up to reach the semifinals of Eastbourne and the quarterfinals of Montreal. It is still a little hazy to me why Jelena Kostanic declined to play for Croatia, although a few factors are apparent -- firstly, her form has slipped considerably in the last half year, and it doesn't help matters that she's split with her longtime coach Velimir Zerker who is now coaching Ivan Ljubicic. If there are no other major factors involved, it probably is a good move for her to stay home and take the opportunity to spend some time with her family and to look for a new coach without losing out on a tournament. At the same time, she is also entered into the Luxembourg tournament in hopes of improving her ranking, which she would most probably have missed had she made the trip to Sydney. Majoli, with only 10 WTA matches and a 50% success rate this year, Iva was no match at all for Anne, and despite the crowd being mostly for the former Roland Garros champion, the Croat could only manage to take 2 games in dropping the first set. For some odd reason, what they lacked in the number of athletes, the Luxembourg team made up for in number of other team members. They had a huge group cheering Anne on every now and then. As the match went into the second set, the spectators and Croatian supporters (who weren't lacking in numbers either) got increasingly loud. Always ready to draw from the crowd, Iva managed to step things up a little, but still fell short. Anne soon had a comfortable 6-2 6-4 win to move into the second round and to set up a third showdown against Amanda Coetzer for the year. Kristie Boogert was also having an easy time of it against Iroda Tulyaganova. The orange shirts were out in full force, but they had little to do as Kristie muscled her way to a quick 6-2 6-2 win. The hard-hitting Dutch has had quite a few big scalps to her name this year, including Anke Huber, Julie Halard-Decugis and Nathalie Tauziat. While Karol Kucera was on center court having little trouble taking out British hopeful and seventh seed Tim Henman, Daja Bedanova took to the court against Yi Jing-Qian. Daja has had consistent results all year, impressive enough for her first year of regularly playing WTA tournaments. Yi has not had any remarkable results, except perhaps reaching the semifinals of Tashkent this year, not defeating anyone of note before falling to Francesca Schiavone. For some odd reason, Daja ended up struggling more in this match than she should have. In the first set, things went smoothly for the Czech, playing a good solid game to take the first set 6-2. I had assumed that the second set would go the same way, so I went two courts over to see the junior number one and tournament wildcard Maria Emilia Salerni take on the struggling Natasha Zvereva. On paper, Natasha should have had no problems with the match. In fact, on paper, Natasha had the second easiest match of the tournament to play. For those of you who haven't yet had the chance to see Maria Emilia (lovingly called Pitu by those close to her), she doesn't look Argentinean at all, with fair skin and light blond hair. Maria Emilia (referred to as MES from now) was playing some very impressive tennis, certainly a lot more solid than I had expected. NZ was probably expecting a much easier match, and in true NZ fashion, started to lose it when the youngster wouldn't go away. MES looks to have strong groundstrokes, good footspeed, and all the determination that seems to come with the young players nowadays, but what distinguishes her from other girls at this stage is that she looks more comfortable playing from all over the court, not just camping out at the baseline. Hitting the ball deep and with purpose, the Argentine grew increasingly confident as she realized that she could do more than just push the former top-twenty player. Halfway through the first set, Olga Barabanschikova came up, waiting to get into the stands. Dressed in a totally cool blue outfit, blue sunnies, and sandals, we had a quick chat for the two games until MES took the firsts set and the players sat down for the changeover, at which Olga went to get a seat in the stands while I went to see what was going on in Show Court 2. The match between Alex Corretja and Goran Ivanisevic had yet to start, so I headed back to court 5 hoping to catch the end of the Bedanova vs. Yi match. To my surprise, the match was into the third set. The Chinese had taken the second set 7-3 in the tie-breaker, and was looking a lot better now. From what I saw, Yi was playing a consistent game, while Daja had trouble keeping her mind on the match. Typical of the youngsters -- they keep focused and motivated until the find themselves ahead in the match, then totally switch off and find themselves in trouble again. If they're talented enough or aren't playing against a top player, they get back in focus and dig their way out of the hole. Luckily for Daja, she was playing against a weaker player, and once she managed to get her concentration back, she never looked to be in trouble again, taking the third set 6-3. She still makes a number of rookie mistakes, but I personally think that once she gets a bit more experience under her belt, this kid will have a decent career in tennis, probably consistently hanging around the top 20. For example, on one point, she thought that a ball was going to be called out and didn't play it, only to let the line judge call the ball in, and the Czech ended up hitting her head with her racquet, realizing that she shouldn't have just let the ball go. Personality-wise, she doesn't appear to be the very talkative type, but is friendly enough and definitely comes across as approachable. Meanwhile, on Court 4, Katarina Srebotnik was having another one of those matches. It was 3 years ago that I first thought, "This kid has everything going for her", but, partly due to a minor injury or two, Kata has not come anywhere near her potential. I remain extremely disappointed with the Slovenian, and was nowhere near surprised at her 6-3 7-6(7) loss to Karina Habsudova despite the Slovakian's poor form this year. Kata was simply making a ton of errors, and didn't look like she was fighting hard enough for it. In fact, if it weren't for the disappointment and frustration showing on her face, I would probably have thought that she didn't care about the outcome of the match. Back on Court 3, Natasha had turned things around to take the second set, but the youngster's confidence hardly even dented, and instead of reverting to a safe game, was all the more going for her shots. NZ had no answers to the Argentine's aggressive play, and bowed out meekly, with a 3-6 6-4 2-6 loss. Salerni's camp was absolutely delighted, and was all over the kid as soon as she came off the court. Now this is a player with a definite future in tennis, as long as she doesn't lose interest or let the grind of the tour get to her. Too many players recently have quit at the transition from junior to pro ranks, tired of the demands of playing tennis professionally and simply not enjoying it anymore. Of course, in my opinion it's better to quit then than to be miserable for years and then finding it difficult to switch to something else. I hurried over to Show Court 2, knowing that the Ivanisevic vs. Corretja match would halfway through. The stands were jam packed, and people were standing 3 deep at all sides of the court and were absolutely crowding around the corners to watch the match. The Croatian wasn't doing too badly, considering his recent form and his shoulder problems. Goran had been at Iva, Ivan and Silvija's matches, supporting his compatriots. There was a group of Croatian Australians who had come from Melbourne to support them, and were there at every match featuring a Croat. I had taken the chance to have a chat with them, and everyone was very sympathetic towards Goran's situation, but resisted the temptation of adding to the number of people hounding the troubled Croat. They didn't go unnoticed, though, and Iva had had a few friendly words with them after Silvija's first round match. Goran was in trouble -- he'd lost the first set, typically in a tie-breaker, and was not just muttering to himself, he was talking rather loudly. Alex Corretja was looking good, and Goran was playing extremely shaky tennis, even by his standards. Goran was trying hard, taking the initiative to make the play, but Alex was playing typical clay-court tennis, keeping the rallies going and waiting for the error from the Croat. It worked, and the set went into a second tie-breaker. One would think that Goran had the overwhelming advantage in a tie-breaker, but this is where things just fell apart for him. Nothing he tried worked, and while he had the right idea, he just couldn't execute. Error after error came off his racquet, much to the disappointment of the crowd, and Goran was doing all but yelling at himself. The match was over soon enough, the Croat only getting 2 points in the tie-breaker, one point less than he had in the first set tie-breaker. Walking to his chair, this surely didn't make things look any less complicated than they already were for him. The disappointed crowd started to filter out of the court, mostly to find out what had happened to the Indian duo who have finally reunited after a ridiculous break-up. The match was already over, and Mahesh and Leander had had no problems in their first-round match against the Romanians Andrei Pavel and Gabriel Trifu, taking the match 6-3 6-4. They would face the Woodies next, and many feared that that would be the end of the Woodie's successful careers together. The final match of the day with the exception of the night matches would start much later than expected, and the stands were nearly empty as Julie Halard-Decugis and Tathiana Garbin came on court. Of course, the Italians and French are very good about showing up in support of their players, and were in their seats, but hardly more than 50 people had bothered to stay for the match. Julie had her usual bored look about her, while the Italian looked a little tense. As soon as the warmup ended, Julie went to her chair, while Tax started juggling a tennis ball with her feet, trying to win the hearts of the crowd in hopes that the few that were present would cheer her on. Tathiana looked strong in the beginning of the match, serving very well and going for her shots. I still find Julie's appearance very misleading, and am always amused at just how hard she can hit the ball even on the defensive. Tathiana still has work to do on her returns of serve, though, and might have had trouble reading the Frenchwomen's shots, because she was more reacting to what came her way instead of making the play. Both players held on ferociously to their service games, Tax having a much easier time of it with service winners in every game. Unfortunately for her, Julie finally got the break at the end of the first set, running the Italian all over the court (I am still to find a player who runs around the court like Tax), taking advantage of a lapse in first serve percentage from Tathiana. In the second set, the Italian seemed to run out of juice, letting Julie take control early and dictate the points. The Italian was simply reacting to whatever Julie threw at her, and looked very down on herself. While the French team were yelling, "Allez, Julie" at every opportunity, the Italians were very quiet, not having anything to say at all. For someone who draws a lot of energy from the crowd, the whole setup must have been hell. Giving up the second set meekly after doing so well in the first, the Italian packed her stuff up and started trudging to the locker room. A group of three girls who had started to clap loudly for her towards the end of the match yelled "Tathiana!" just as she was about to leave the court, and the Italian graciously turned around, smiled and waved at them before walking off, much to their delight. |