Husarova and Plischke Fall On Monday
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.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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