Qualifying Action Continues
by Prip
Second day of qualifying, and the first three matches featured
prominent players. Martina Sucha would take on Hong Kong's
sole player, Tong Ka-Po, and should have little trouble. Sure
enough, she took the first set 6-1, but the Chinese girl cleaned
her act up considerably in the second set, taking advantage of
a lapse in concentration from the Slovakian. Martina managed to
get through anyway, and set a potential date against Maria Emilia
Salerni, should the Argentine get through against Anna
Zaporozhanova.
Over on the other side, Spaniard Ana Isabella Medina Garrigues
took on Julia Vakulenko, and had little trouble against the
Ukrainian. Playing a very explosive game in her first hard court
tournament since February, the Spaniard took quick control of the
points, and worked hard to dictate play. She was in full control, and
Julia had absolutely no idea to counter the barrage of balls coming
at her. Ana took the match 6-3 6-2, and walked off court to prepare
for her upcoming doubles match.
Meanwhile, Jelena Kostanic was struggling in her match against
Liezel Horn. It wasn't so much that Liezel was troubling her
than Jelena was battling with her own demons. The Croat was drifting
in and out of the match, her shots flying all over the place, and
tactically, there was nothing coming from the Croat. She was trying
hard to make the play, and to play aggressively, but simply could
not follow through through pure lack of concentration. She somehow
managed to keep it together long enough to take the first set 6-3,
but was totally gone in the second set. Regular readers of my match
reports can pretty much refer to any of my previous observations on
the Croat and they'd still hold true.
Jelena was serving a little better than she had in the first set,
but still had nothing on the ball. Through pure guts and lots of
scrambling, she kept herself in contention in the third set after
dropping the second 3-6. Her serve was failing her miserably, but
she looked like she was getting a grip on the rest of her game
again, until 3-all when a double-fault capped of a miserable
service game, giving the South African the crucial break. All
hell broke loose for Jelena in the next game, and she had progressed
from mumbling to herself yelling rather loudly. Her coach could
only sit and watch his new charge self-destruct. His philosophy --
go ahead, break your racquet, talk to yourself, pay the fine, just
don't lose your concentration and let your opponent know that you're
falling apart.
Through some miracle, and aided by several careless errors from
Liezel, the Croat barely held on to her service game to stave off
match point. Once again, she started to play well when she found
herself down in the match. Instead of playing recklessly, she played
aggressively, going for the lines and finding most of them. Her
backhands and forehands have changed very distinctly, and instead of
constantly brushing the ball up on her backhand, she's started
hitting the ball a little flatter. She's also hitting her forehands
with a lot more topspin instead of flat like she used to.
Showing glimpses of what the Croat is capable of, she refused to go
away quietly, and put in an incredible amount of effort, forcing
the plays and making things happen on court. The small crowd
appreciated her effort, and had decided that she deserved the
match more. She evened the match up again at 5-all, but couldn't
sustain the level of concentration she had, and a flurry of silly
errors undid her hard work. She once again found herself down and
facing the prospect of an early exit from the tournament.
Liezel continued to approach the net whenever possible, but Jelena
stayed calm and got a nice passing shot down the line, and an
unforced error from the South African left her trailing 0-30. The
next point saw the players trade backhands, and the tension in the
air was so thick you'd need a hacksaw to cut through it. Jelena,
very smartly, suddenly threw a slice in, and the change managed to
catch Liezel off-guard enough to get the error off her racquet. A
service return from Jelena flew long on the next point, but that
was only a temporary setback, and the Croat followed that with a
couple of strong groundies, forcing the error and evening the match
yet again at 6-all. Once again, an all-too familiar situation for
the Croat -- a third set tie-breaker. Tough high-tension situations
seem to be a prerequisite for Jelena's matches.
Jelena started the tie-break serving, and in a change of pace,
started slicing her backhands. She threw slice after slice across
the net, and Liezel found a bit of difficulty adjusting to the
different spin after having returned more than a match's worth of
topspin backhands. Liezel herself decided to throw a slice in on the
next point, but mistimed and totally mishit the shot, leaving her a
sitting duck on the court. Jelena did all the work on the court,
making the play, taking her chances, and found herself up 4-2.
Both players had played a long match in the hot and humid weather,
and Jelena had done an incredible amount of running, but she was
still ready to keep going, and scrambled around all over the court.
Her serve was a huge liability, and left her on the defense from
Liezel's strong returns, and this point was no different. She quite
nearly got herself out of trouble, but Liezel was in the right place
in the right time, and got the break back for 3-4. She couldn't
consolidate the break, though, and Jelena got the next point on a
strong forehand winner. Drifting in and out of the match, she pulled
her backhand a little too high and the ball landed long on the next
point (something her coach has decided to work hard on rectifying).
An unlucky netcord evened the tie-breaker up at 5-all.
The next point was pretty ugly, both players resorting to throwing
moonballs in the air, until one from Jelena landed long. Match
point # 2 for Liezel. Jelena once again turned the volume up, and
played an incredible gutsy point, hitting the ball without abandon.
She kept moving forward, hitting the ball hard and deep, pushing
Liezel backwards, and finally forced the error from the South
African's racquet. Almost predictably, the Croat double-faulted on
the next point, bringing her back to square one, and faced match
point # 3. Choking under the pressure, Liezel made a silly unforced
error, throwing that one away.
Liezel followed her serve into the net on the next point, and Jelena
made the wrong choice for her passing shot. Liezel guessed correctly,
and was right there waiting when the ball came across the net. Match
point # 4. She got a nice second serve in, but Jelena stepped into her
return and hit the ball on the rise. Inching her way forward, the
Croat had the point in her hands, and finished it off with a
beautiful winner on the sidelines. The linesman suddenly changed his
call, though, and deemed the ball out. The umpire had probably had
had enough of the match, and refused to overrule the call. The crowd
got a little noisy, as the ball had landed inside the line, and was
clearly in. Jelena protested a little, but quickly saw that the
umpire wasn't going to overrule, and dejectedly went to her chair.
It was evident throughout her matches that there is a lot going on
with the Croat. The youngster has unlimited capabilities, and has the
potential to absorb information like a sponge. While the extremely
talented youngster has had a dismal year, she is hoping to make a
fresh start next year. Helping her will be her new coach of only a
couple of weeks, Alain Maric. They have formulated what I think is a
very good programme for the year-end break and are certainly focusing
on the right things. Hopefully, things will go as planned and the
youngster will crack the top 50 by mid-year.
For the Katarina Srebotnik fans, Kata once again had a clean match, this time
against Saori Obata of Japan. Stringing two wins in a row for
the first time since the end of January this year, Kata pretty much
demolished her opponent 6-1 6-3, and looked positive throughout the
match. Things were starting to look a little more encouraging for the
Slovenian. All she needs is a couple of match wins to give her
confidence a jump start, and things will start picking up again for
her.
Maria Emilia Salerni was having an equally easy time of it.
The Argentine was still showing very lackluster play, not doing much
with the ball and pretty much winning the match off Anna
Zaporozhanova's errors. For the second time in as many matches, I
came off disappointed with the Argentine's tennis, which was nowhere
near the standard she had shown at the Olympics. As the players shook
hands at the net (the score was identical to Katarina's), I harboured
hopes that the junior number one will pick her game up by the next
round. Lying in wait is Martina Sucha, and the Slovakian is more than
capable of taking Maria out of the tournament.
The rest of the matches for the day were pretty straightforward. I
took a break while the doubles qualifying matches were determined.
Joanette Kruger was once again going to try her hand at getting
through to the main draw, this time with Mini Battle Tank Tatiana
Panova, and was seeded second. Their first opponents would be
Ana Isabella Medina Garrigues and Alienor Tricerri of
Switzerland.
Anne Kremer and Sandra Kleinova were already halfway
through their first round qualifying match against Jolanda Mens
and Julia Vakulenko, and were having little trouble handling
them. Anna and Sandra came through 8-4, although the match wasn't as
close as that.
The match started out looking like the second seeds would have an
easy time, but that was only because the Swiss girl was looking
absolutely lost on court. Her partner was doing well, looking like
she had quite a bit of experience on the doubles court, but Alienor
kept making terrible decisions, finding herself out of position on
court, making poor choices of shot, and all in all being the definite
weak link in the team. Her reaction at first was lukewarm, but as her
partner made brilliant shot after brilliant shot, keeping her team in
contention, the Swiss girl gradually picked up her game as well.
Learning from her mistakes and being more aware of what was going on
on court, the Swiss girl started holding her own pretty well. The
games were still even, up to 7-all.
Joanette and Tatiana kept to their tactics to attack the Swiss girl,
as the Spaniard was still raring to go, and looked fully into the
match. Every now and then when her partner missed a shot or made a
really stupid mistake, she'd looked exasperated and frustrated that
her hard work had gone to waste, but only for a moment, and never
toward her partner. She'd then turn around, and offer nothing but
support and encouragement to her partner.
The match went into a tie-break, which could have gone either way.
One team had to emerge victors though, and the Spanish-Swiss team
found themselves the upset winners, when the got the decisive break
at the very end to take the tie-breaker 8-6. Joanette and Tatiana
looked fully disappointed in themselves, as they had probably
expected to get through into the main draw. On the other hand, the
Swiss girl looked delighted and proud of herself for having turned
her game around, while her partner looked more relieved than
anything. They headed off court to see who their next opponents would
be.
On the adjacent court, Maria Emilia Salerni was back on court again, this
time in doubles action with Tina Hergold, winner of the event in
Cardiff. They had an easier task ahead of them, in the form of
Eun-Ha Kim and Saori Obata. Once again, there was a
definite weak link among the four, and this time it was Tina. Nothing
she tried seemed to go right, and after a game or two, the Asian
pairing took advantage of her shaky tennis to put themselves in
contention. Maria was holding her team up well, though, giving her
partner every opportunity to pick her game up. And pick her game up
Tina did indeed, not only holding her own towards the end of the
match, but certainly also establishing her presence on court. Tina
and Maria ended up taking the match 8-6, but it had definitely gone a
lot longer than it should have.
While the players were given reasonable time to rest, Anne Kremer
and Sandra Kleinova went back on court against top seeds
Stephanie Foretz and Zsofia Gubacsi. Common sense would
put Anne and Sandra as favourites in this match, and once again they
had little trouble, coming away with another comfortable 8-4 win.
Back on the other court, Salerni, Hergold, Medina and Tricerri were
starting their match. Tina Hergold had finally settled down and
started the match as well as she had ended the previous, no longer
putting all the weight on her partner. Maria, on the other hand,
showed good familiarity and confidence on the doubles court, and
looked considerably brighter than in her singles matches. The number
one junior in doubles, as I had noted 6 weeks ago, is comfortable
playing from all over the court, and has the most decent net game of
any junior coming into the WTA in a long time. Medina and Salerni
both looked tired towards the end of the match, as both had played
three matches and were probably unused to this pace both physically
and mentally. The Argentine-Slovenian pairing took the match handily,
and moved into the final round of qualifying. Barring any sudden
lapse in performance from either player, this team is fully capable
of progressing to at least the second round (quarterfinals) of the
main draw, should they come through in the final qualifying round.
Singles qualifying second round:
- Iroda Tulyaganova (1) (UZB) def. Cho Yoon-Jeong (KOR) 6-2 6-2
- Katarina Srebotnik (7) (SLO) def. Saori Obata (JPN) 6-1 6-3
- Evgenia Koulikovskaya (RUS) def. Zsofia Gubacsi (HUN) 6-3 6-3
- Liezel Horn (RSA) def. Jelena Kostanic (CRO) (5) 3-6 6-3 7-6(7)
- Ana Isabella Medina Garrigues (6) (ESP) def. Julia Vakulenko (UKR) 6-1 6-0
- Yuka Yoshida (JPN) def. Alicia Ortuno (ESP) 6-2 6-1
- Martina Sucha (8) (SVK) def. Tong Ka-Po (HKG) 6-1 7-5
- Maria Emilia Salerni (ARG) def. Anna Zaporozhanova (UKR) 6-1 6-3
Doubles qualifying first round:
- Foretz/Gubacsi (1) bye
- Kleinova/Kremer def. Mens/Vakulenko 8-4
- Hergold/Salerni def. Obata/E-H Kim 8-6
- Medina/Tricerri def. Kruger/Panova (2) 9-8 (6)
Second round:
- Kleinova/Kremer def. Foretz/Gubacsi (1) 8-4
- Hergold/Salerni def. Medina/Tricerri 8-4
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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