Martinez vs. Mouthanaisse; Bovina vs. Lamade
by Prip
The match between Maria Jose Martinez and Bahia Mouhtassine was
certainly not the prettiest, with errors coming from both ends and
long loopy clay-court rallies featuring moon-balls that would make
even Conchita Martinez cry, but both players must be given credit
for pushing themselves to the absolute limit. With temperatures
soaring and the match being played during the height of the heat,
it would not have been surprising if both players will spend the
rest of the day and the whole of tomorrow in bed recovering.
Attracting a large number of players and spectators towards the end,
the match lasted 2 and a half hours and Maria came close to tears,
nearly dropping to her knees when the last shot from Bahia landed
long. The Spanish teenager had advanced to the main draw of a Grand
Slam for the first time.
Ironically, on the very next court, another marathon match was in
progress. By the time Maria and Bahia were well in the cool of the
locker room, Elena Bovina and Bianka Lamade were only just heading
into their second set tie-breaker, with the German having taken the
first set in a tie-break as well. Elena looked a lot less fresh than
she had in the last two weeks, no doubt with her dynamic game taking
a lot out of her. The rather lanky and awkward-looking Bianka Lamade
seemed to have little trouble handling the pace of the ball coming
at her, and did well to move the Russian around the court. Bianka was
also mixing her shots up well, sometimes hitting the ball hard and
flat, making her opponent run, and other times putting a lot more
topspin on the ball. Elena had a lot of trouble making the adjustment,
especially with the high top-spin shots, and came up with a ton of
errors. Not getting much of a rhythm throughout the first two sets,
both players were tested as the second set went to 6-all. Elena had
actually had her fair share of chances to close out the second set a
lot earlier, but Bianka did well to put the pressure on.
The trainer was called, but for once it was for Bianka and not the
Russian. Nevertheless, both players looked like casualties. While
Bianka was stretched out on the floor, Elena laid out towels on the
court and stretched her own legs, sipping water and energy drink
constantly while piling on the ice bags. The tall Russian was
certainly expending a lot more energy in her game, and has a smaller
surface-to-mass ratio, and had been holding ice bags to the top of
her head in the last few changeovers.
The second set went to Elena, who had picked up her first-serve
percentage considerably. Bovina had also been frustratingly
erratic, playing hard to earn break points, and then throwing them
away in a matter of seconds with shocking unforced errors. Several
times, she'd been given the easy short ball, just passing the net,
which she'd get to easily and then panic, not knowing what to do and
simply putting it back in play. It took all his coach could do to keep
himself from running onto court and strangling her. Instead, he ended
up lighting up half a pack of cigarettes. To be fair, there were
quite a number of bad line calls going against Elena at the baseline,
but the youngster managed to shake them off.
Elena opened the tie-breaker serving, and got into trouble early. She
found herself down 1-3, but got the mini-break back for 3-all, and
got another break to go up 4-3. Bianka looked like she had pushed too
hard and had run out of steam. Elena cut down on her errors to get 3
set points. The first was saved by a lucky net cord for Bianka. Elena
was on the way in to net from the back corner of the court, and
Bianka was going for the low passing shot, hoping for the ball to
land at her opponent's feet. Elena was all ready to get the ball
back, racquet low and waiting, but the ball clipped the net, popped
up and landed deep. Spurred by the stroke of good luck, Bianka
summoned up some energy reserves, and saved another set point before
watching yet another winner blast past her to even it up at 1 set
all.
The third set was a totally different story. Elena Bovina managed to
push herself harder than her opponent, and cleaned up her act
considerably. Bianka, on the other hand, ran totally out of juice,
and found herself helpless against the bullets coming at her. The
grunts from Elena reaching a crescendo, and the Russian swept the third
set to close out the match 6-7, 7-6, 6-0, after nearly 3 hours of
heat torture. Lucky for both Elena and Maria, they would be placed in
the top half of the draw, giving them 2 whole days to recover from
their matches. And like they say, what doesn't kill you will make you
stronger. Hopefully, all 4 players will have taken something away
from this experience.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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