Saturday, September 02, 2006
Moscow, we have a problem
by Pierre Cantin
Another day filled with very cold and bad weather but this time, rain was not part of the mix, at least not until the end of the day when it did not bother me (for other reasons, I had to leave the stadium at 7PM anyway).
So yesterday was the start of the 3rd round in the women's draw, a day that marks a complete different start of paste for myself and for the tournament as a whole. After 2 rounds, you can feel that there is less action going on the grounds. While during the whole week there are matches on 15 or more courts, it starts to go down on the first Friday, as well as the number of players and thus the interesting practices become rare. So I make it a point every year starting on that day, to spend less time running around from court to court and more time finding some good matches to watch.
Yesterday I started off with the matchup between Jelena Jankovic and Nicole Vaidisova. It was a good match but strange, Nicole seemed to be going on and off all the time, she was going for her shots so much that it was hard for her to get into any rythm, I guess it's the same in all of her matches but for some reason, I thought it created more problems against Jankovic. The Serbian has deceptive speed around the court and made Nicole hit a few more shots than I would have thought, which got some more errors from the Czeck. I think in the end Jankovic won because she was able to stay composed throughout Nicole's ups and downs and was just more consistent. Nicole still needs to work on her movement a lot more, especially the movement up and down the court, and also I think she really needs to work the points a lot better. Her coach seemed to be telling her to do that, but she is not choosing well enough when to go for winners which can create so many unforced errors as well as open angles up for Jankovic to hit in.... So disapointing loss for Vaidisova, but she'll be back...
I then saw a bit of some doubles matches, mostly Benesova and Strycova against Zi and Yan, it was a pretty intense battle, I would have liked them to defeat the #2 seed Chinese team but in the end they came up just a bit short... Then a bit of mixed doubles with Azarenka/Mirnyi facing Paes/Stosur, it was a great match, very entertaining:)
And finally, the match of the day for me as Maria Kirilenko faced Aravane Rezai, an upcoming French player. It was stunning to see what happened in this match. I already thought Kirilenko lacked power but thought she could get through this match, but not at all... On every point she was getting pushed back in the court, getting played with almost, it was anything but a tight match. I really think Kirilenko needs to all a lot more power and pace to her shots, she was hitting going backwards in that match, never really was close to pulling this match off which was sad for me to say the least. I think Kirilenko still has loads of talents, but she needs to work very hard on her game because she is getting further and further from the top instead of the opposite...
After that, some running around but not much, I'm just hoping my last day of tennis will not be rained out!
Talk to you all later!
# posted by Pierre : 5:19 AM
