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by Priya Prasad The first qualifying day of the Internazionali Femminili di Tennis of Palermo started off seeming like the people at Wimbledon would have a better day of it (rain washed out the women's final and once again interrupted the men's semifinal between Goran Ivanisevic and Tim Henman), but turned out to be a worthwhile experience after all. Most of the main draw players had already arrived in Palermo, cutting their breaks short to acclimatize to the heat Palermo is experiencing. Most notable were the Italian players who were on hand to support their friends who have to slog it through the qualies, and the Spaniards who, led by Gala Leon Garcia, were having a ball of a time clowning around. True to the Italian spirit, where any activity is pretty much forbidden during siesta time, i.e. 11.30 to 3.00, play was scheduled to start at 3.30pm. That gave players plenty of time to practice and prepare for their match. Alexandra Fusai, still struggling after having taken a tumble down the rankings nearly 2 years ago, lounged around for a while, trying to keep comfortable in the scorching heat of the afternoon, and finding the players' lounge too crowded. She and a couple others found their way into an empty lounge and tried to relax there, but were quickly ushered out. The matches eventually commenced, and the first few were prime examples of what tennis shouldn't be like. Laura Dell'Angelo took forever to send Syna Schmidle packing, and Gisela Riera had a marathon of a match against Anna Floris after struggling in the first set. In the other two matches, Nathalie Vierin had little trouble against a tall and awkward-looking Maria Geznenge of Bulgaria. Having seen the uncoordinated strokes of the Bulgarian on the practice court earlier, it wasn't surprising to see the fifth seed win 6-3 6-1 without having to do much at all. Nina Nittinger couldn't keep the unforced errors down in her game, and meekly bowed out 6-3 6-2 to Tatiana Kovalchuk, a gradually improving young player from the Ukraine. Hardly having enough time to break a sweat, the German headed straight for a practice court where she and another used up the last few minutes they had playing a very entertaining game of touch mini-tennis. Very amusing were the ballboys and ballgirls. It is not unusual for the umpires to have their hands full directing them about on the first couple of days of play, but today's performance was a fiasco. All around the age of 9 or 10, barely over 4 feet tall and mostly thin as sticks, they had little strength in their arms to pass the balls around, and missed balls more often than they caught them. Some even started passing balls just a player was about to hit her serve, and caused no end of agony to all those around. Particularly cute was the sight of one boy, possibly the smallest of the lot, official uniform draped on like a Chris Rock in John Candy's clothes, trying his best to hold on to eight tennis balls at once. For some reason, all the balls on the court had been passed to him, and between holding on to those he had, picking up the others, and passing one to the waiting player, he sent a wave of chuckles through the crowd. The upset of the day came from the Italian version of Monica Seles, Francesca Lubiani. Playing against seventh seed Conchita Martinez Granados, Francesca looked strong throughout the match, and came through with the most convincing win of the day. She should make it through to the third round where she is likely to face the strongly built second seed Eleni Daniilidou. Eleni had been walking around the grounds all day, watching Gisela Riera's match with interest, and looking rather relaxed and carefree in general. Eighth seed Giulia Casoni struggled a little in an unfortunate draw that pitted Italian against Italian on home ground. Antonella Serra-Zanetti has won only 1 of 7 matches this year, but her sister Adriana had performed solidly in the 4 tournaments she's participated in, compiling a 8-3 record for the year. The eighth seed looked very wishy-washy and couldn't keep her concentration on court for very long. She survived in three sets, however, watched over by Fed Cup captain Rafaella Reggi (how great is it to see Raffi around!). For the first time in slightly more than 2 years now, Caroline Dhenin found herself on court playing a WTA-sanctioned match. On the other side of the net stood Valentina Sassi, a very friendly Italian who got through qualifying in Madrid, her sole tounament for the year before Wimbledon. Caroline had hardly any time to savour the experience, though, as Valentina dispatched her 6-1 6-1 in less than a fifth of the time the Italian had stood around waiting for the match preceding hers to end. Not enough of a match to judge the Italian by, and by the looks of it, neither will her next match against Maria Boboedova be. Finally, possibly the find of the tournament is Maret Ani. One of only a handful of players from Estonia, she is playing in her first professional tournament here in Palermo. Unfortunately, it could have gone a lot better for the youngster. In a match that went on well after sunset, Maret Ani tried to make her first professional match a success against Evgenia Koulikovskaya, but simply didn't have enough experience to pull it through. The Russian kept throwing in drop shots, most of which Maret got to, but the numerous sprints across the court took its toll eventually, and by the third set, the youngster was dripping with sweat in her second set of clothes and huffing and puffing. In contrast, Evgenia was hardly winded at all, having done much less running about, and showing good anticipation for the ball. Despite being lower-ranked, Evgenia has had enough experience on the tour to know how to change her game. She quickly noted that anything she sent to Maret's forehand was being crushed, and soon sent everything she could over to the youngster's backhand, which is by no means a weakness. Throwing in beautiful drop shots followed by heavily-spun lobs, her smart play was rewarded with an eventual three-set win practically by moonlight. Maret seemed to have a lot of trouble adjusting to the artificial light compared to Evgenia, who is likely to have had lots of indoor training. The final score -- 7-6(2) 5-7 6-3. Nevertheless, Maret Ani has earned herself a spot on the "Players to Watch" list, although she will probably need a bit of time to make a mark. Here's one to keep an eye on in the future. On a low note, the news is that Olga Barabanschikova has all but decided not to play professional tennis anymore. Having faced numerous personal obstacles (and a lingering foot injury) in the last year or so, I personally hope that she is merely taking a sabbatical and will return with renewed enthusiasm for the game. Her talent for the sport and charming personality is greatly missed by all on the tour. |