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by Priya Prasad Day three saw lots of drama in the qualifying draw, and three out of the four who managed to work their way to a main draw certainly worked hard enough for it. The sole cool customer for the day was Eleni Daniilidou, who hardly broke a sweat in dispatching Francesca Lubiani 6-1 7-5. The sturdy Greek had made her first big impression at the very same place another youngster playing in this tournament, Emilia Salerni, had: at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Evgenia Koulikovskaya continued to persevere, playing smart tennis and dissecting her opponent's game well enough. The problem came with the actual execution, and having played two tough matches in a row didn't help her physically. Spurred on by the home crowd, fifth seed Nathalie Vierin played consistent clay court tennis, making her opponent do the work before throwing in a couple of hard shots to turn the table around. Alas, the more active and aggressive play of the Russian won out, and the "peperoncino" finally qualifies for her second tournament of the year, and in grand style no less. Consolation for Nathalie Vierin is that Bianka Lamade has decided not to come and in leaving a blank spot in the draw, has made allowance for a lucky loser. Alexandra Fusai and Valentina Sassi managed to break the record for biggest effort in a match so far. Despite a change of attire or two from both players, they were drenched with sweat for the last set and a half. With Mercedes Paz and the Salerni sisters in her corner, Alix found it a little easier to move on from her unforced errors and lapses in concentration. On the other hand, Vale held steady throughout, maintaining her composure as she does and hardly looked up to her coach in the stands. Unfortunately, the match had to be decided by physical fitness. The stifling humidity left the younger player dehydrated, and unused to such demanding physical activity, Vale could hardly hold her racquet up by the middle of the third set, and it pained everyone to see her merely able to dink her serves into play. A throw would have been more effective. Despite that, she continued to work hard, mustering all the strength she had to really smack her forehands, and continued to play aggressively. It seemed like the Italian would prevail despite looking like she was about to collapse between points, but at 1-4 down, she stretched too much for a forehand and her right thigh muscle started to cramp. Trying to stretch the cramp out, she hobbled over to the baseline to serve, and as she played the point, her other thigh muscle started to cramp. In obvious discomfort, the Italian played like she had nothing to lose, going for her shots, but the fatigue in her arms and body, as well as her limited mobility left her vulnerable, and Alix took the match 6-3 6-7(1) 6-3. Both players could hardly lift their feet to shuffle over to the net to shake hands. For the Italian, the tournament is over, and she will take some time off to regroup before heading off to the next tournament. On the other hand, Alix comes one step closer to regaining her confidence on the singles court. The third huge effort of the day came from Giulia Casoni. The Italian favourite in the draw came within a hair's breadth of making it zero for four for the Italians. Totally losing her cool as well as the first set 1-6, Giulia found herself down in the second, and broke down. She argued one point extensively, taking more time than probably anyone (but John McEnroe and Ilie Nastase) in the history of tennis. She and Miriam Ramon argued the case so fiercely that Ludmila Cervanova on the next court was driven to asking Giulia to "stop shouting". Pretty much refusing to play on, Giulia made it very clear that she wasn't going to stand for another shaky decision against her, and only continued when she received some indication from Rafaella Reggi to carry on. Taking out her frustrations on the tennis ball, Giulia battled back from the brink of death to take the second set 9-7 in the tie-breaker to level it up at one set apiece; only to throw it all away again. Miriam herself was running on anger and frustration, and the heat only served to make both parties more incensed. Managing to keep her unforced errors in check, Miriam jumped to a 4-1 lead, and it seemed like the second set was going to be a mere technicality. And the tables turned again. The games went long, but the important points went the Italian's way, and as her lead started to dissolve in the humidity, Miriam herself started to crack. The superior fitness and resolve of Giulia gave her the next 5 games in a row to put her in the main draw, the sole Italian survivor. In the last qualifying match of the day, Maret Ani and Laura Dell'Angelo surprisingly came through in their match against Maria Geznenge and Tatiana Kovalchuk. The match was typically frustrating of when there is one good and one less-than-efficient player in each team. Laura has only a vague idea of strategy on the doubles court, and it took extreme self-restraint from the other two to not to end Maret Ani's career prematurely. On the other side of the net, Maria Geznenge had a better understanding of doubles strategy, but is simply rather hopeless when it comes to playing tennis. On one point, Maret had thrown in a sliced drop-shot, which Tatiana had anticipated and was on the way to killing, but Maria had other ideas and moved cross-court to take the shot instead. Tatiana stopped dead in her tracks to avoid crashing into her partner, who totally whiffed the ball. By that point, Tatiana was pretty much exasperated with her partner, and when what seemed like a sure break of serve was thrown away like that, Tatiana could only turn and shake her head, while her partner grinned sheepishly. The other two obviously needed a split-second to realise that they had gotten away with murder, and all who had seen what happened had huge grins on their faces but Tatiana, understandably. Despite towering over the others, Maria Geznenge had rather good reflexes when it came to blocking back volleys aimed at her, unlike Laura Dell'Angelo. The mixture of personalities on court was as diverse as they came: Maret Ani was playing well, thinking positive and encouraging her partner; Laura Dell'Angelo was playing badly and getting madder and madder with herself as the match went on; Tatiana Kovalchuk was playing exceptional tennis, and trying hard to compensate for her partner whom with she found increasingly lacking; and finally Maria Geznenge who was playing badly, knew it, but had an I-missed-but-that's-the-best-I-can-do attitude. Eventually, the dynamics of the match decided the outcome. Tatiana, overcompensating for her partner, bit off more than she could chew and ended up playing like she just wanted to get off the court, Maria improved a little but not enough, Maret continued to play well, occasionally going for a bit too much, and Laura cleaned up her act to finish the match 5-7 6-4 6-0 despite coming very close to faltering. Consolation for the losing pair -- a blank spot left open once again by Bianka Lamade, leaving her would-be doubles partner Giulia Casoni high and dry. In main draw action, Tathiana Garbin, sporting an improving backhand (which had deteriorated after her unfortunate hiatus late last year), could have whitewashed her opponent Adriana Barna but took the opportunity to try new elements added to her game by new coach of 3 weeks now Raoul Ratzinger. With a fresh regiment, much-needed focus on certain aspects of her game and renewed enthusiasm, Tathiana might find herself back on track sooner than expected. Gradually running around less and less backhands, Tathiana took the match 6-1 7-5. Not so successful was her good friend Janette Husarova. Seeded eighth in the weak draw, Janette hardly put up a fight against Asa Carlsson. The general verdict from players watching the match: Janette played like she didn't care. From her point of view, she's wondering if she's played too many matches this year so far, but is happy that she's managed to increase her rankings and is likely to take a short break after this tournament. Gala Leon Garcia had little trouble taking out Sandra Nacuk despite finding herself 0-3 down in the second set, and wrapped that up 6-3 6-4. Ludmila Cervanova had to put forth considerably more effort, but her opponent Tatiana Poutchek threw whatever lead she had whenever she had it, and the Belarussian lost 3-6 6-2 6-2. That nation's history of producing players who tend to space out on court continues. In the night match, Sylvia Plischke's woes continued as she failed to make too much of an impact in her match against Francesca Schiavone. The first set looked at times to be within reach, but the Austrian simply could not make good of the important points, and got so frustrated after missing a relatively easy overhead (of course, the lights were an important factor) that she turned around, double over and let out a bloodcurdling scream. That sealed the deal for day one of main draw play, and left the rest of the main draw players eager to get on court the following day. A small tournament like this provides the opportunity for a title to players other than Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and the Williams sisters. |