Serna Struggles Again On Thursday
by Priya Prasad
The first two matches of the day featured the remaining two
qualifiers in the singles draw. Alexandra Fusai had an expectedly
tough match against second seed Tatiana Panova, but couldn't
pull it through. Lacking confidence after having had a rough year
thus far, Alexandra actually had a break and was up 3-1 in the second
set, but found it difficult to finish off points. Tatiana Panova is
well known to run after pretty much everything, and sometimes got
back absolutely amazing shots that delighted the crowd. On one point,
Alexandra hit 3 decent overheads that Tatiana ran across the entire
court to return before Alix realised that she'd have to really put
the ball away if she were to avoid having to squint into the sun
again.
Tatiana managed to regain the lead with considerable ease, helped
along by numerous errors from Alix, and looked confident as she
walked off the court with a 6-4 6-4 win. On the adjacent court, ninth
seed Ana Isabel Medina Garrigues polished off Evgenia
Koulikovskaya 6-3 6-1. Looking slightly physically stronger than
she did nearly a year ago, the Spaniard has expanded her game
considerably, and has incorporated a bit more patience into her
aggressive baseline game.
Back on centre court, Catalina Castano could hardly keep the ball in
play against seventh seed Cristina Torrens Valero. She was seemingly
bothered by everything from the gusts of wind to line calls to the
slow ballkids. (Admittedly, they have all the players pretty much fed up. Players
have resorted to directing them around as well, and prefer to pass the
ball over to the other side of the court themselves after every game).
Cristina didn't have to suffer the afternoon heat much, and quickly
finished the match off 6-2 6-2.
In the final singles match of the day, Magui Serna continued to
struggle after taking the first set of her matches. Playing against
the tall Lubomira Bacheva of Bulgaria, the top seed struggled
to keep control of points, but eventually came through 6-2 7-5. That
sealed the quarterfinal match-ups as follows:
- Magui Serna (1) vs. Cristina Torrens Valero (7)
- Tathiana Garbin (5) vs. Gala Leon Garcia (4)
- Asa Carlsson vs. Francesca Schiavone (3)
- Ana Isabel Medina Garrigues (9) vs. Tatiana Panova (2)
In the doubles, lucky losers (for the lack of a better term) Tatiana
Kovalchuk and Maria GeznengeAntonella Serra-Zanetti and Syna Schmidle. Walking back to
the locker room accompanied by Eleni Daniilidou, I asked how it went,
and Maria light-heartedly replied, "We played so bad it wasn't funny."
The punchline came when Eleni followed it up with a "Yeah, the losing
team is here" with a sideways grin and pointing at her two friends.
Spirits were good, though, as the two Russians made arrangements for
their departure from Palermo, and proceeded to have dinner.
In the meantime, Rossana de Los Rios was relaxing after dinner,
watching amusedly as Tatiana and Maria horsed around with her
daughter Maria Paola. The independant, amicable and observant
youngster continues to amuse and entertain everyone around tournament
grounds, and enjoys being swung around and such by the various
players. Nuria Llagostera later came along, and teased her by
carrying and lowering her into the drink cooler.
In other doubles matches, Tathiana Garbin and Janette Husarova
came back from a 0-3 deficit in the first set to win 6-4 6-2 against
Eleni Daniilidou and Caroline Dhenin. Janette played
exceptionally good tennis, to the suprise of many, and looked like
her concerns on whether she was burning out were resolved. Second
seeds Medina Garrigues and Martinez also creamed their opponents,
winning 6-2 6-4 against Emmanuelle Gagliardi and Gala Leon Garcia.
That left the semifinal match-ups as Garbin / Husarova (1) vs.
Carlsson / Plischke (3) and Medina Garrigues / Martinez (2) vs.
Antonella Serra-Zanetti / Schmidle. Odds are that the two top pairs
will make it into the final and provide an interesting match for
all.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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