Reigning Wimbledon Finalists Stay On Collision Course
by Priya Prasad
Giant-killer Tina Pisnik had looked forward to being first on court
against seventh seed Daja Bedanova for quarterfinal Thursday,
in stark contrast to her midnight match 2 days before. Back to the
usual white and blue colour scheme, the Slovenian looked ready for
another scrap, while Daja came onto court looking as relaxed as ever.
There would be few surprises: the two have known each other since the
age of 10, and had been fierce junior rivals just years before.
Daniela took off to an early lead, playing steady tennis and watching
the ball coming off her opponent's racquet carefully. The slices off
the left wing and topspin off the right wing wasn't doing much to
fool the Czech, and Tina looked a step slow in getting to the ball.
The Slovenian found herself struggling to keep up, receiving at 1-5
down. She managed to save 2 match points before losing the first set,
and had the trainer standing by for the changeover. Anyone thinking
that she was suffering a letdown after her two big wins early in the
tournament were mistaken, and the trainer left her with a quick
massage and a heavy wrap on her left thigh for her quad. An essential
part of her game taken away from her, Tina could do little to stop
the damage, and had a grimace on her face between every point. Unable
to get into position well enough, and certainly feeling demotivated
by the misfortune, the unforced errors started to take over, and the
trainer appeared on the next changeover, Bedanova leading 3-0, to
deem the injury serious enough for a default. A smart move from the
Slovenian, who not only should certainly be wary of injuries so early
in the year, but had qualifying in Sydney to think about.
Next on court were last year's finalist Silvia Farina Elia and
Nadia Petrova, who had a pair of faithful supporters
heartily following her around tournament grounds in white shirts,
blue shorts and red knee socks. The pair had been at every match of
hers, as well as sat patiently through all her on-court practice
sessions. Silvia came on court with her right ankle wrapped heavily,
but it didn't seem to bother her too much.
The Russian had a cautious start, not hitting the ball half as hard
as she's known to, and Silvia got the break to open the match. The
Italian was ready to scramble as much as she had to, and kept the
ball coming back even if all she could do was take a stab at it. Her
gambles paid off more often than not, though, and she got the 2-0
lead she was looking for. The star of the match soon showed up,
though, and Nadia's booming serves gave her 4 points in a row for
her first game. Feeling a bit happier with herself, she started
focusing her attack on Silvia's backhand, taking advantage of the
lesser strength in the one-handed shot.
Silvia continued to play aggressively, peppering the baseline with
her shots and preferring to risk sending the ball long than to come
up with a short ball. It worked for a while, but the sheer power of
the shots she was facing were forcing a fair number of errors off
her racquet, and she suddenly found herself down 3-5, up against one
of the fastest serves on the tour to stay in the set. Always sure of
herself in any situation, the Milanese refused to step back and took
the ball early on the return of serve, getting her the break back.
The variety of shots being thrown at her frustrated the Russian, who
was struggling to reach for the low skidding slices as well as
reaching up for the high bouncy topspins. Her movement was a little
flat, making things even worse, and Silvia took advantage of the
possible injury, throwing in looping high deep shots. The tactic
worked, and she jumped out of a tight situation to a 6-5 lead.
A familiar sight when she's on court, Nadia admonished herself,
slapping her thigh and muttering in Russian. She started moving
into position better, adjusting and putting more effort into her
shots to compensate for the less-than ideal heights the balls were
coming at her. Hitting the balls cleanly and more confidently, the
Russian managed to draw a couple of unforced errors from her opponent,
giving her 2 break points, the second of which was converted when a
would-be forehand winner down the line from Silvia clipped the net
and fell back onto her side.
The very nature of each point being crucial in the tie-break gave the
edge to Petrova, who had the momentum firmly behind her. Four unforced
errors and a double-fault gave Petrova a whopping 5-0 lead before
Silvia finally got a grip on herself. Playing very deliberate tennis
and facing up to the huge serve very confidently, the Italian bounced
back to 4-5, but it was too little too late, and her backhand let
her down again to give away the first set.
As soon as the tie-break was over, Nadia rushed off the court to
where the trainer was waiting, ready to administer treatment for an
injury that had become a little less of a hindrance in the last games
of the set.
The treatment for a pec strain seemed to help Nadia a little, but
Silvia had spent the extra time gathering her thoughts and resolving
not to let her backhand be pressured. Alternating slices and flat
single-handers on the left wing, Silvia took the first, broke for the
second, and then the third games of the second set, not letting an
opening double-fault bother her too much. Pressing too hard again,
she couldn't keep up with the Russian and squandered her lead to even
the set up at 4-all.
Both players fought hard, Petrova because she couldn't afford to
stay on court for a third set and Farina to actually stay in the
match. Big hitting interspersed with a bit of finesse and lots of
running from both players kept the set a toss-up, but Silvia
eventually pushed the envelope a little too far and lost 7-5,
making her opponent work hard up to the very last point.
After the closely contested first half of the singles play, Justine
Henin and Venus Williams appeared to run on and off court just
long enough to keep the tickets sales up. Justine made qualifier
Anca Barna look like she was standing still on court, the lanky
German having absolutely no answers to the barrage of tennis balls
bombarding her, and if it were not for the new and still shaky serve,
she would have had the honour of the first double-bagel of the year.
As it was, she got through with a mere 6-2 6-2 thrashing, but will
once again enter the top 100 with her performance here.
Venus Williams had to struggle a bit towards the end against
Ai Sugiyama, who had the sold-out crowd firmly behind her, but
the American managed to overcome an acute drop in her first serve
percentage to move ahead with a 6-2 6-4 win. Had the Japanese
managed to get her own serve under control, the match might very well
have gone to three sets, but alas, she not only struggled to get her
first serves in, but had a multitude of doubles-faults at the most
unfortunate times.
And that set up the semifinal match-ups for the 2002 Thalgo
Australian Women's Hardcourts, a lineup most Tier III tournaments
could only dream of. At the top of the draw, Venus Williams will
take on Nadia Petrova (if the hurting Russian decides not to withdraw from
the tournament) and in the other half, Justine Henin will look to put
her shake off her nervousness against the young Czech Daja Bedanova.
Singles Quarterfinals:
- 7-Daja Bedanova (CZE) d Tina Pisnik (SLO) 61 30 ret.
- Nadia Petrova (RUS) d 5-Silvia Farina Elia (ITA) 76(4) 75
- 2-Justine Henin (BEL) d Q-Anca Barna (GER) 62 62
- 1-Venus Williams (USA) d 8-Ai Sugiyama (JPN) 62 64
Doubles quarterfinals:
- 1-Likhovtseva/Sugiyama (RUS/JPN) d Bedanova/Majoli (CZE/CRO) 64 64
- 4-Henin/Shaughnessy (BEL/USA) d Schlukebir/Tatarkova (USA/UKR) 62 62
|
|
The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of this magazine.
https://tennis-ontheline.com/02gc05.htm © 2025
Last updated 26 September 2015
// -->
|