Tag Archives: francesca schiavone

forza!

Posted on June 2, 2011 | 2 Comments

I confess I have not been rising at 3 am all these mornings of tennis from Paris, that’s when the live tennis begins, 11 am in France.  But today, I woke up at 5 am, set to watch the women’s semifinals, and they didn’t even start until 6 am.

First up, Maria Sharapova and Li Na on a very windy but sunny afternoon.  With an exceedingly high ball toss, Maria had her hands full.  Full of difficulty.  Where earlier in the tournament, and in Rome, where she won the title, her serve was working well, today the windy conditions played havoc with it.  And it made the critical difference. Her first serve percentage was only 45% and that just never gets the job done in this kind of match.

Li Na was in command, with just a few patchy spots where she sprayed her forehand, and she’s a better mover than Maria.  Over and over she exposed the limitations of Maria’s footwork.  Breaks of serve were exchanged.  Li went out in front to begin, then Sharapova broke back to get things back on serve.  In the final game of the first set, Maria serving, Li took a 40 – 0 lead, thanks to double faults from her opponent and on the final point, Maria went in for a forehand kill shot, but the ball clipped the tape and bounced out.  A pretty unpleasant way to lose the first set, if you were Maria.

The second set was closer but in the end, at 5-5, Li came out to win a love service game.  In the final game, Sharapova threw in her ninth double fault of the match, Li generated two match points for herself.  Maria gifted her the match by serving one more double fault, losing the second set 7-5.  Yet another ignominious end to a set, and in this case, the whole shebang.

Maria will not complete her career Grand Slam, as she had hoped.  Li Na will play in the finals on Saturday, her second Grand Slam final, having made it to the Australian Open final earlier this year.

So the second set of semifinalists, Marion Bartoli of France and Francesca Schiavone of Italy, took the court a short while later knowing one of them would play the Chinese woman in the final.  But which one would it be?

To my mind, the outcome of this match was easier to read early on, though you still never know.  The truth is that Francesca is the better player.  Actually the truth is that Francesca is a clay court player and none of the other three semifinalists were or are, including Bartoli who should know how to slide but doesn’t.  In addition, Francesca has tremendous variety in her game, off both wings she can and does slice the ball and hit it with topspin.  You don’t know which is coming when and you have to be ready for both.  Will it jump up high and you’ll hit it back with all your strength from shoulder height?  Or will it sidespin low on the court, requiring you to bend your knees to get down to it?

Francesca has a fine, powerful serve, surprising since she is so small herself, and even in the windy conditions, it worked reliably.  Bartoli’s game is flat and hard hitting and though Francesca had to run and work hard, you could still see that it was the Italian who was calling the shots and the French woman who was reacting.

The stadium was packed and though the French have taken a long time to warm to Marion, they were fully behind her.  Last year, everyone was cheering for Francesca in the final against Sam Stosur, and in earlier matches.  But she wasn’t playing a French woman then.    Still, nothing deterred Francesca today.  (Although there was something that went on with the umpire early in the match and I don’t know if she was noting how long Bartoli was taking between points.  Marion did get a warning for time violation once, but the fact is she averaged 35 seconds between points to Francesca’s 26.)   She played her game, defended her title and earned herself another chance on Saturday to take home the title for a second year in a row.

I like Li Na, she has a great fun personality, always laughing and joking, but I’ll be on Francesca’s side for this one.  It’s such a wonderful story.  She’s thirty years old, a veteran, she’s been knocking on the door for a long time.  She’s incredibly ripped, works hard.  Anyone who has worked long and hard towards a goal can appreciate that when the reward comes, it comes because of all the work.  It’s not a fluke, it’s all there in the final moment, every practice session, every match, every everything.  So for all spirited men and women who work hard and have a dream, Francesca is an inspiration.

Go win the final, Francesca, hoist the trophy and take home a big fat paycheck.  She did that last year and has joked that all her friends expect her to pick up the dinner checks.  I’m sure this bighearted girl does it with pleasure.  Her Italian friends, many of whom drove from Italy last year at the last minute, are all here this  year, seated in a pack with flags and hats and who knows what all.

Two heart grabbing women will take the court on Saturday for the final of the French Open.  One will win.  Don’t miss it, get up early, tune in to NBC.

And come back to Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot, right through the final days.  I’m all in, can’t wait for the exciting men’s semis tomorrow and then both finals on Saturday and Sunday.  Still hard to predict, but I’ll call Schiavone now for the women’s side.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.

PS – I watched French Open Tonight last night on Tennis Channel and there was Bill Macatee interviewing none other than Guga Kuerten, the Brazilian player I wrote about in a blog post earlier this week.  Guga was probably the most loved player of any generation and it’s not hard to see why.  You just like him.  He’s a little like Francesca that way.  You just like her.  Guga is a former number one player and he won the French Open three times between 1997 and 2001.  He retired from the tour in 2008, never fully recovering from hip surgery.  These days he’s busy with his foundation in Brazil that helps poor kids, which he was himself, and he says it’s more meaningful to him than all his success and titles in tennis.

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the heart of the matter

Posted on May 31, 2011 | 2 Comments

Maybe it’s because so much tennis is being played, maybe it’s because the stakes aren’t yet that high, but in the beginning of a major tournament the focus of attention isn’t always on the role that heart plays.  But if you want to see heart on the court, heart that makes the difference, that is the critical component,  stick around for the quarterfinals, the gateway to what matters most to players, a Grand Slam title.

It was well on display today on both Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen.  Francesca Schiavone, the defending champion, found herself in a deep hole the same size as the one Maria Sharapova was in a few days ago in her match against newcomer Caroline Garcia.  Nineteen year old Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the last teenager in the draw, was having her way with the nearly thirty one year old veteran.  The score?  6-1, 4-1.  In the words of the late Yogi Berra, it’s getting late early.

How was Schiavone going to get herself out of this one?  Well, Maria did it with steely determination, unwaivering self-belief and that worked for her, it usually does.  Francesca is Italian, though.  She’s all heart.

She came back to win the second set 7-5.  The third set was a topsy turvy affair.  Francesca took the lead 5-1 and served for it at 5-2, but couldn’t convert.  She served for it again at 5-4, and couldn’t convert.  Yikes.  The wind was swirling, the temperatures were cool.  Conditions were difficult.

Finally she broke her opponent to go up 6-5 and then she served for the match for the third time.  She had two match points that went begging.  Finally, Francesca created a third match point for herself with a drop shot executed from the baseline, to perfection.  Gutsy.  You could see her look up at her box, on their feet, and say “Forza!”

And so, finally again, on that match point, a microcosm of the whole match, Anastasia made a volley reply and Schiavone drove it past her for a winner down the line, taking the deciding set 7-5 as well.

Walking off the court, Francesca scooped a handful of the red clay and smeared it on her face.

Who wants it more?  Who doesn’t get tight?  Who doesn’t choke?  Who has the most heart?

All of these questions were to be answered on Lenglen in the fifth set between Murray and Troicki, the resumption of their match from the day before that was suspended as darkness fell, two sets each.   Murray came from two sets down to take sets three and four, and when they took the court this afternoon for the deciding set, he was working from behind all the way again.

Troicki went out to a 5-2 lead.  He served for the match at 5-3 and was up 30-0, two points from the victory,  and then the wheels fell off.  He choked, he got tight, you could see it.  He kept looking around and up to his box with a self-defeating smile, shoulder shrugs that seemed to say it was out of his control, it was someone else’s fault.  That is not going to get it done.  That is the opposite of heart, of digging deep.

Nineteen minutes later Murray had charged back all the way and was at 6-5, serving for the match himself.  He went up 40-0, Troicki fought back and saved those three match points.  But it was too little too late.  Murray had a fourth match point on the Ad and as in the women’s match, he ended the last point, requiring some incredible gets from him that he made, with a glorious shot, in this case a backhand crosscourt passing shot for the winner.  This is the fifth time in his career that Murray has come back from two sets to love to win a five setter.

Murray is into the quarterfinals (the match against Troicki was still round of 16) and he’ll play Juan Ignacio Chela, a match he is much the favorite to win.

While Djokovic was having another day off, due to Fognini’s withdrawal, Roger Federer and Gael Monfils took the court for their quarterfinal match.  Roger won the first two sets and you had to wonder if it was already over or if Gael was going to put up more of a fight.  To his credit he played a very competitive third set, 6-6,  but Roger went out in front in the tiebreak and never looked back.

At 6-1 in the tiebreak, I found myself saying out loud “A handful of match points”, only to be echoed in exactly those words by Patrick McEnroe who was calling the match on ESPN.  Hey, Patrick, wanna spend more time at home with the wife and kids?  I’m available.

Federer has not dropped a set in the tournament.  And this is his 28th consecutive appearance in a Grand Slam quarterfinal or better.  Think about that.  Seven years, all four tournaments, round and round we go from Paris to London to New York to Melbourne and start all over again, not to mention all the other stops on the tour.  He has never retired from a match; he has been nearly totally injury free.  It makes a case for staying relaxed in your body.  He’s fluid, light on his feet.  Even Rafa Nadal has said that he would play like Federer if he could, that it takes much more effort for him to play his game.

Roger will play Novak in the semifinals on Friday.  It should be a fantastic, exciting match.

On both the men’s and women’s sides, history is being made in this year’s French.  Never before in the Open era have the top three women’s seeds been gone before the second week.  And never before have all five of the top men’s seeds advanced.

In a day of play that was marked by heart, the match between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Marion Bartoli on Lenglen was no exception.  Sveta won the French in 2009, I saw her win it against Dinara Safina (who?), someone you had to feel sorry for she went into such a meltdown.  Kuzy, as she is known, is the first to admit she often gets nervous at the end of big matches, but that day Safina’s nerves took up all the air and space.

Today, Marion Bartoli was on her game.  She’s such a quirky player, with the weird serve motion, and the constant jumping around and shadow cuts at the ball to get ready.  She’s a little chunky too.  But she hits the ball well off of both sides, two hands for forehand and backhand, and if you get it in her strike zone, she’s lethal.  Today she was relentless and Sveta played well, but not quite well enough.  Was it heart?  Lord knows Marion wanted it.  She’s French, the crowd was really behind her and she used it and worked it.

She served for it at 5-2 in the second, having won the first in a tiebreak.  Unable to close the door, she got another chance at 5-4 and she took it.

At this level of tennis, you can’t fade, you can’t blame, you can’t hold back.  Famously, Guga Kuerten, drew a heart on the clay on Chatrier, and then lay down inside it.  That says it all.

gustavo kuerten at roland garros, laying in the heart he drew in the clay

guga laying in the heart he drew

(Via Kamakshi Tandon)

One last comment on today’s action.  There was a unique moment in the Murray Troicki match early in their deciding set.  A ball kid thought the point was over when Troicki, up at the net, hit an overhead, but Murray got it back and Troicki angled another overhead for a winner.  But just as he was going for that shot, the ball kid was running out on the court at the net, just barely not colliding with him.  It was disruption of play, unintended, and the umpire ruled that the point be replayed.  Troicki was upset, understandably.  The kid felt terrible, a young boy, maybe ten or twelve. Being a ball kid in France is a huge honor, thousands of kids apply from all over the country for the coveted positions.  A point or two later when the same boy hesitated to retrieve the ball, Troicki messed with him in a way that was testy and unkind and to my mind, showed his true character, not a pretty picture.  I just hope the head of the ball kids wasn’t too hard on him.

That’s it for today.  This is really a fun, special French Open.  Stay tuned for the remaining matches, there are bound to be some great moments.

See you tomorrow at Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.

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smack dab in the middle

Posted on May 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last Sunday, it all kicked off.  The eager crowds mingled through the grounds and play began.  Next Sunday, the only match to be played will be the last, the men’s final.

Today, the middle Sunday, some of the story has been told, but not all.  The round of sixteen started and the second match on Lenglen between Fabio Fognini and Albert Montanes turned out to be a more than four hour five setter complete with twists and turns, and a lot of drama especially in the last set.

When I turned on the television after seven this morning,  I heard Leif Shiras saying someone had 97 unforced errors.  Not having seen who was playing or the score, I figured if there were that many errors it had to be a five set match.  With a cup of coffee, I watched the exciting finish to a match that was 8-8 at that point.

Earlier in the set, Fognini was experiencing leg cramps and they don’t go away.  By the time I tuned in, he could barely walk or even stand up but he played the match out, withstood a slew of foot fault calls, including on his own game point and even his own match point (and he didn’t even blanch, much less walk over and shout Italian obscenities at the linesman…)and saved five, count them, five!, match points before finally closing down the match at 11-9.  It was pretty incredible.

He was both cheered and booed, the latter because of some controversy surrounding the leg cramping and whether he was entitled to any medical treatment.  Leg cramping can only be treated during changeovers or change of ends and during that allotted time.  It doesn’t qualify for a medical treatment time out.  But the trainers said Fognini’s troubles were not leg cramping, so I guess he was entitled to what he took.  And if the crowd didn’t like the way he won, take it up with the umpire who allowed everything that happened.

The match brings up one of the trickiest circumstances a player can face on court, that of the injured opponent.  You’d think it would make it easier, your opponent is hampered in some way, you’re not, just play your game and win.  But it really isn’t as simple a it seems.  Your concern for the other player enters into it, so now you have trouble competing the way you were before.  And you’re trying to calibrate how you need to play against the injured player, go for more, hold back, and it all gets confusing.  Change one thing, change everything, as a friend of mine always says, and so it is.

It was a good day for Italy because after that absorbing match, on walked Francesca Schiavone, the defending champion, and Jelena Jankovic for a war that was both expected and realized.  Not surprisingly, it went the distance with Francesca taking the first set, Jelena the second and they went neck and neck to 4-4 in the third for a very tense finish.

Both of these girls are emotional and it’s fun to watch.  John McEnroe, Mary Carillo and Ted Robinson commentated the match and there was plenty of laughter and teasing as Francesca yelled at her box and Jelena yelled at hers.  A lot was on the line for both players.  Jelena has never won a major and at twenty six the window starts to close, so she really wanted to win this match and advance.

For Francesca, she’s the defending champion and she’d like to take it home again.  Not to mention that the first match of the day on Chatrier saw Vera Zvonareva, the number three seed, lose to the fourteenth seed, Russian nineteen year old Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.   So she’s really thinking maybe she can go all the way.

Meanwhile, there’s a match to finish as all these emotions swirl and bubble up.  And Francesca broke Jelena in the next game to take a 5-4 lead and then serve for it.  She did just that and won it.  Before she left the court, after signing a few of those big tennis balls, she got down on the court and kissed it.

By that time it was nearly seven o’clock and once again there was concern if the next match between David Ferrer and Gael Monfils would be able to finish.  Ferrer came out the same as he always does, ready to fight to the last.  Monfils came out as he always does, so athletic you think he’s made of plastic you can shape and mold, so much the showman you can’t help but be charmed.  On Kids Day a few days ago, Gael entertained on Chatrier by doing a one handed handstand!  Are you kidding?

So was it to be slow and steady or flash and flamboyance that would take the day?  We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.  The players got in three sets, with Monfils up 2-1, there was still some daylight so they opened the fourth set.  But no television coverage then, so I listened to RG Radio for the last bit.  Monfils injured himself in some way, Ferrer broke him to go up 2-0 and play was stopped until tomorrow.

Roger Federer has traveled under the radar so far, but he hasn’t dropped a set yet.  He played his fellow Swiss and friend, Stan Wawrinka, and won in straights.

Djokovic did the same against Richard Gasquet.  What was Richard doing, standing ten feet behind the baseline the whole time?  Certain things in tennis are determined by the laws of geometry and physics.  If you stand that far back, you can’t create angles and your opponent can.  And standing back that far it takes longer for your ball to travel back to your opponent which gives him more time to set up for the next shot and you less chance of winning the point.

If you know you can’t win from back there, why be there?  You might as well make it a walkover and go have lunch.    Hug the baseline, get into net when you can and if you still lose, well, okay, at least you had a chance to win.

Still, no one expected Richard Gasquet to win the match today and it would have been a complete miracle if he had.  It’s great that he got to the round of sixteen and now I hope he does as well or better at Wimbledon.

The French were consoled by the win of another countryman, or woman in this case.  Marion Bartoli advances to the quarterfinals, and she’ll have plenty of energy since she only played one set and two games before Gisela Dulko retired with an injury.

The final match to talk about today took place on Court One instead of Lenglen, because of the long matches there.  Kuznetsova against Hantuchova, it went three and Sveta won it.  So she’s a former champion and Francesca is the current champion, and Maria wants to win it to complete her Grand Slam wins.

And maybe none of them does it.  Maybe Azarenka wins or Kvitova or Petkovic.  It’s still wide open, perhaps even more so with the top three seeds and Stosur all gone.

Lots more tomorrow, what better way to spend Memorial Day weekend?  See you then and thanks for hanging out with me at Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.

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australia day

Posted on January 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

Australia Day is like our Fourth of July, complete with parades, fireworks and way way too much drinking.  And it’s today in Australia.  Vera Zvonareva and Petra Kvitova were in the second set of their quarterfinal match on Rod Laver when the noontime twenty one gun salute announced itself.  They buzz the roof of Rod Laver, not once, but a few times, and it is loud and a little scary.   As if that wasn’t enough distraction, just ten minutes earlier a woman either injured herself or became ill a few rows behind where Kvitova was playing, a true visual and emotional diversion from the tennis, more so for Vera who could see it.  It threw things off for a little while, but Vera, she of the famous meltdowns as recently as a year ago, is now a consummate professional.  She had won the first set and had been up 3-0 in the second but was in danger of possibly losing the set when Petra caught up and the score was 5-4, Kvitova serving.  Vera broke her to win the match.  On to the semifinals for the third time in Grand Slams in the past year.

On the men’s side, yesterday, Roger Federer did to Stan Wawrinka what Wawrinka had done to Andy Roddick two nights before.  He gave him a comprehensive beatdown.  Now it was Stan ten feet behind the baseline, fighting for his life, looking like an amateur.  How is it possible, you wonder, that things are so different depending.  But that is tennis.  Andy had nothing to threaten Stan Wawrinka and then Stan had nothing to bother Roger.  Each player has his or her strengths and weaknesses and those match up in certain ways with other players and their strengths and weaknesses.

And if you had any doubt that the women’s game is anyone’s game, the only player who was in last year’s quarters and this year’s is Li Na of China.  My own pre-match racket bracket picks were only fifty percent correct for the last eight women.  I’m doing better with the men where I got six of eight.

There had been much talk about the Djokovic/Berdych match being a five set thriller, but it wasn’t.  Novak just outran and outdefended and outdid everything that Thomas could put out there.  And he won it in straights, 6-1, 7-6, 6-1.

The beauty of a match these past two days turned out to be, not surprisingly, the quarterfinal encounter between Caroline Wozniacki and Francesca Schiavone, last night.  Everyone thought Francesca couldn’t possibly have anything left to give after her four hour forty four minute marathon match against Kuznetsova.  But they were wrong.  Francesca won the first set and was up in the second before Caroline came to.  Where was she?  In the press room, giving guff, or over on the cricket field learning the game?  Who knows?  She wasn’t on Rod Laver for awhile.  Unsettled, fussing with the tape on her leg.  But then she did click in and that burst of energy met up with some of Francesca’s fatigue; it went three sets, with Wozniacki winning.

But Francesca was no loser.  It was beyond amazing that she played the match she did after what she had been through.  In the press conference after the Kuznetsova match, she just showed more of what you love about her.  When asked if she would be able to play again in two days after the marathon, she said she is young, she can run, she can do anything.  Was she aware of the time they had been on the court?  She said, yes, I was looking at the clock and I say, brava Frankie, you are strong!  Players get asked all the time about their internal process, what they were thinking, but most of the time you get pro forma answers.  Francesca actually gives us a real glimpse in her refreshingly honest and unscripted way.  She said she works for these things and when you do something like this, you feel big.  She’s an inspiration to every player.  At thirty, old in tennis terms, she’s having her greatest success.  After years as a journeyman player, she has become a real star.  Brava.

Kim Clijsters won her match over Aggie Radwanska of Poland in straights, but it was more of a contest than that indicates.  Kim won the first set 6-3 and should have put the second to bed much sooner than she did.  She kind of went away mentally, Kim has these periods in her matches, and let Aggie hang around until the set needed a tiebreak to settle it.  Kim has yet to play her very best tennis but she’s got one more match, against Zvonareva, to get to the final and she’ll need it to win.

Our four semifinalists are Wozniacki and Na Li, Kim and Vera.  It really is any one of these women’s game still, and both the semis and the final, whoever is in it, should be good contests.   Kim is the only one of the four who is a Grand Slam winner, though she has not yet won the Australian Open.  And as Kim would be the first to tell you, it took her about a half dozen tries before she finally closed the deal and hoisted the trophy at the end of one of these majors.  You have to win seven matches against all sorts of opponents, on all different surfaces and courts, in all manner of weather and conditions, staying in all kinds of hotels and apartments, eating different food, drinking new water.  It is not easy.  So even when you make a deep run at these events, you feel, as Frankie told us, “big”.  And if you are the last woman standing, the victor, you would feel huge.  If Caroline or Vera or Li Na win their first Grand Slam this weekend, they will feel big indeed.

Tennis is about the game and it’s about the players and all the human dramas and stories.  It’s about the different countries they come from and where they compete.  And it’s about the fans without whom it would be the tennis version of one hand clapping.  All of that combines in ways both predictable and surprising and often compelling.

As it did last night on Rod Laver Arena as Rafa Nadal and David Ferrer took the court before a packed house.  Rafa, just three matches away from a career Grand Slam, ownership of all four trophies in one year, he won the French, Wimbledon and the US Open in 2010.  He was feeling better from his virus, did well against Cilic, didn’t sweat like crazy as he had been.  Feeling good, Rafa should be able to beat his friend and fellow countryman, David Ferrer, even though their head to head is 3-2, I believe.  Never count Ferrer out, that’s for sure.  If Francesca Schiavone is La Lionessa, David is and has always been The BullDog.  He’s a grinder, he’s fast, he’s a shotmaker and he goes first ball to last with the same intensity, very much like Rafa in this way.

Early in the first set, at 2-1 Ferrer, after a long game when Rafa first served, in which he was broken, he called for the trainer and left the court for a medical time-out.  No one knew what was up.  Sometimes you can see on court when a player has suffered an injury, they turn their ankle in the wrong way, they pull up in pain from a shot, but last night something happened to Rafa that wasn’t as clear as that, and it still isn’t.  He came back to the court, prepared to play, and after a few games it looked like maybe he was going to be able to work through it, but he never really did.  Was it the thigh, the hamstring?  He didn’t retire, something he did exactly one year ago, on Australia Day, against Murray.  He played the match, but Ferrer, who excecuted his game plan to perfection against a wounded Rafa, was the victor in straight sets.

It was a huge disappointment to everyone.  The purists, like Bud Collins, will say it’s not a Slam unless you win all four in the same calendar year.  Rod Laver did it not once but twice.  But anyway you cut it, to hold all four in sequence is an achievement few attain and Rafa’s hopes for that, and all who love him and his game and his spirit, were completely dashed last night.  In his press conference after the match, he asked not to speak about the injury, mostly because he didn’t know what it was, but also, greatly, because he wanted to focus on the match that got played and how well Ferrer had competed.  He does not want to be the guy who only loses because he has an injury, and he does not want to be the player who retires and deprives his opponents of a win they earned.  Rafa accepts that you go out on the court as you are on the day and you compete and you either win or you lose, and then you come back the next day and the next and do it all over again.  He doesn’t want sympathy, he doesn’t make excuses.

In the middle of the match, there was a break, as there always is, for the fireworks display.  You can see them from inside Rod Laver and last year when I was there I watched them outside of the tennis park, at the edge of the river downtown.  They put on a good show, that’s for sure.

So last night all of it combined, the drama, the high stakes, the game and its history and its present and future, the players and their humanity and aspirations, the country and its traditions and proud history, the fans and their fervor.  At the ESPN desk, now with its own Australia Day traditions, there were vegemite sandwiches (disgusting stuff) and meat pies, and lizards and wombats or whatever prickly creature that was.  Only Aussie Darren Cahill could stomach the vegemite, Brad Gilbert went walkabout when the animals started licking Darren’s jacket, Vera Zvonareva tried the vegemite and held the animals.

It didn’t turn out as expected.  It was great.

Happy Australia Day!

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