Italians Advance as Qualifying Begins
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.
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https://tennis-ontheline.com/01pal01.htm © 2025
Last updated 26 September 2015
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