Tag Archives: kim cliijsters

the grass is green, and wet

Posted on June 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

And just like that, clay is a memory.  Now it’s all about the grass.  It’s a strange and delightful part of the tennis year.  So short.  Three weeks, four if you make it to the second week of Wimbledon.  That’s the grass court season.  Is that a season?  Blink and you’ll miss it.

Add the rain factor and you might just miss it due to weather.  Today, Sunday, I was looking forward to seeing the finals of the Aegon International outside London, between Andy Murray and Jo Wilifred Tsonga.  They were looking forward to playing, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow, hopefully.  Rain!

Ditto for the Birmingham competition on the women’s side.  That’s a final I really want to see.  I watched the semis yesterday.  Hantuchova took it over Ana Ivanovic.  Sabine Lisicki delivered a beatdown to Peng.  When the Racquet Bracket comes out for Wimbledon, I’ll be looking to see where these two girls are because they both are there to play.  I think Daniela Hantuchova is realizing time is not on her side and she’s just done with choking at the important moments.  She wants the good feelings that come from not choking.  Great to see, she’s got a good strong game.

And Sabine Lisicki doesn’t have a history to overcome, she just hasn’t yet gotten the top results and she’s all in.  So let’s see who wins the final between them and then how they do in Eastborne and Wimbledon.

The weather was dry in Halle, Germany and that is a gorgeous looking stadium.  Turned out to be an all German final, between Philipp Kohlschreiber and Philipp Petschner.  Two Phillipp’s even and yes, they spell it with two p’s.  Kohlschreiber took the title after a first set tiebreak and two games of a second set where he was up 2-0 and Petschner retired with a back injury.

The big excitement this week will be seeing Venus and Serena Williams both playing after long absences due to injury and illness.  All of us want to see how they look on court.  They’re planning to play Wimbledon and that’s their playground more than any other tournament.  Venus comes to life on grass like a new woman.  Serena’s powerful serve makes her difficult to break and therefore difficult to defeat.  It they’re playing anywhere close to form, they are both top contenders for the title.

I think Kim Cliijsters will be in Eastborne and she’s another one we need to see before making any predictions for Wimbledon.  If her foot is healed from the wedding dance double insult, she should be at the top of the short list.

Neither Roger nor Novak played this past week, and Rafa looked tired.  He almost let Tsonga beat him in the quarterfinals.  I’m not sure it was that great an idea to run right over to England.  Maybe a week in Mallorca would have been a better thing in the long run.

I’ve been thinking about the men’s final a week ago in Paris.  They’ve shown it again a few times during the week.  At one point towards the end of the first set, beginning of the second, when Roger should have won the first set and didn’t, Ted Robinson was quoting some sports person, whose name I didn’t recognize at the time, as saying something along the lines of “you have to keep your foot on your opponent’s neck”.  It’s a strong image, and clear, no wondering hmmm, exactly what does that mean?

Basically, he was saying that’s what Roger had needed to do at that crucial time in the first set when he was up 5-2.  And he didn’t.  So guess what?  Rafa volunteered.  As unpleasant as the image and concept might be, you can’t say it’s irrelevant.  So if you have an opponent, you might want to remember to keep your foot on his or her (her!) neck.

That’s the brutal truth from Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.  Thanks for reading.

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finally the women’s final

Posted on June 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Two weeks ago as the tournament got underway, the women’s field was as wide open as it ever has been.  No Serena or Venus, no Justine, Kim bounced out early.  Any one of a dozen or more players could have won and we all just had to watch the action unfold and see which way the wind eventually blew.

Few thought Francesca Schiavone, the defending champion, would get to the final today or hoist the trophy for a second year.  Few thought she’d ever win it once, or any other Grand Slam.  She nearly didn’t make it as she looked down the long lonely barrel of the rifle in her quarterfinal match against Pavlyuchenkova, down a set and 4-1.  So for her to take the court today was at least a little surprising and a testament to her clay court skills and fighting spirit.

Across the net, a woman no one thought could play on clay, including her.  Growing up in China, her parents didn’t even know what tennis was and there weren’t any clay courts, that’s for sure.  Today at least 30 million Chinese watched at 9 PM Beijing time as Li Na took the court for the final of the French Open.

Li has a new coach and he has encouraged her in this direction.  He must have known something because Li has done well in Madrid and Rome before coming to Paris.  Her former coach left her to work with Maria Sharapova, so it had to feel just a little extra good when she beat her the other day.  Li Na’s husband was her coach until recently but after the Australian Open she fired him and that seems to have been a good decision.  Now he can just be a husband.  Much better.

Li reached the finals of the Australian Open end of January and she played a three setter against Kim Cliijsters.  It was her first Grand Slam final, she lost, but she learned.  Today she knew how to be, how to play, and as it turned out, how to win.

You could learn a lot about tennis from the match they played.  Li’s game is a power game, she’s strong off both wings and she hits flat and hard deep into the court, often the corners.  Francesca’s game is to get to net as much as possible, where she is very adept at put away shots, and to throw out a variety of shots and spins to keep her opponent guessing, and, importantly, running.  Li was so dialed into her game for the first set, she utterly deprived Francesca of the chance to play hers.  Most of the set, and most of the match, Li dictated while Francesca reacted.

Li never seemed nervous.  She was ready for the stage and for the win.  In the second set she had chances to go up a double break practically insuring the victory, but Francesca fought back and started to be able to play her game as Li started to miss and began to feel nerves.

It was great to see Francesca come to life.  She very nearly got back into the match and if she had won the second set, who knows what a one set winner takes all scenario would have looked like.  But in the tiebreak that decided the second set, Li just played brilliantly, shots with depth but also cat and mouse encounters and odd shots that required improvisation.  She played like a clay courter a bit, and she won the tiebreak without giving away a single point, 7-0.

As Francesca’s shot went long on the last point, Li slid and fell to the clay.  It was over.  She was and is the new champion, the first Chinese person, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam title.

You think they’re going to build clay courts in China now?  People have talked for awhile about an imminent explosion of interest in tennis in China and surely that’s here now.  Ten years from now all the kids who are going to start playing in China these days because they are inspired by Li Na, we’ll be seeing their names at the top of the game.  If you sell tennis racquets and have an entree into the Chinese market, chances are good you’re going to take some very nice vacations very soon.

Both of these players are likeable, so whichever of them had won it, it was going to be a happy thing.  After the ceremony, after the photo shoot and on-court interviews, finally Li Na got her gear and waved to the remaining people in the stands, walking out the door from which she had entered three hours earlier.  Ball kids carried the all white huge bouquet of flowers that each of the players received before they came on court and all of the ball kids were lined up on both sides of the hallway and stairs, clapping, as the new champion smiled and descended a flight of stairs into the locker room.

One more match tomorrow and how bad can that be?  Federer vs. Nadal.  Have at it, boys.

And on a final note today.  What a bungled deal that whole thing was this week with Fabio Fognini, the Italian player who beat Albert Montanes in the round of sixteen.  He had leg cramps during play and in the middle of a game received treatment.  It was the chair umpire who went out of her chair and on to the court to say whatever she said and after that play stopped.  You are not supposed to receive treatment for leg cramps, in the middle of a game or on a changeover.  So I don’t know why the umpire did what she did.  And funnily enough, she was the one who officiated the final today.

Then, it turned out that more was wrong and the doctor for the tournament weighed in by saying Fognini probably shouldn’t play for a couple of weeks.  But before that, he withdrew from the tournament, his decision, rather than wait a day or so to see if it got better and then decide if he was well enough to play, and his camp apparently said he decided not to play because it was Djokovic he would face.  Maybe if it had been someone else he would have tried, but Djokovic?  He was saying why bother, I’m going to lose.  I had thought he felt bad to miss the opportunity but apparently not.  He’s no Francesca Schiavone.  That’s a little too lazy and spineless for my taste.

Enjoy the final match wherever you are.  More from Cupcakes and Tennis tomorrow and thanks for reading.

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down to the wire

Posted on March 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

Okay, let’s start right up front with the men’s semi-finals decided just moments ago by the outcome of the Nadal/Berdych match played in front of a totally packed house.  Nadal won in three sets.  The first he played like a maestro, and then he had to fight for the rest of the match.  It looked like maybe he had the same stiff neck after the first set that prevented Gilles Simon from playing his full match against Roger this afternoon (he retired at 3-0 in the first set to the great displeasure of the crowd; they booed as he left the court which I thought was bad form, the guy would not have left the court if he could have played).  Still, Rafa won, whatever the physical difficulty was, and tomorrow night I will be there along with thousands of others to watch Rafa and Roger play for the first time in North America since 2005.  This is real tennis excitement.

And I love that of the final four, you’ve got Rafa, Roger, Novak Djokovic, the top three players in the world and who else?  Number fourteen, Mardy Fish!  Go Fish.  Love Mardy.  I don’t think he’ll win against Novak, who is unbeaten this year.  That’s right. Twenty matches, twenty wins.  Or is it twenty one?  That kind of winning streak does not happen often.  John McEnroe had a 39 match winning streak, and someone else almost as many, not remembering right now.

I do have to say that Brad Gilbert is truly impressive when it comes to knowing tennis history.  Last night, when Cliijsters was down 1-5 in the second set against Azarenka, Mary Joe Fernandez was asking about other consecutive match dig outs (Kim had saved five match points the night before against Ivanovic.) and Gilbert came up with some pretty obtuse information and he was right.

Kim lost last night.  She seemed flat after her late match the previous day and only at the end when defeat seemed a short step away did she rally.  There comes a point in many matches when the loss is nearly inevitable and it’s always interesting to watch how the almost defeated player just loosens up and goes for his or her shots, what the hell, and often it can turn a match around.  One thing I think is clearer when you are watching tennis live is the mental game.  You can follow that thread more easily, you can see the players during the changeovers, you can see a lot of things you don’t/can’t see on television.  You can just read that story in a way you can’t otherwise and tennis is such a mental game, it’s a huge part of it to be able to know what’s going with the players internally.

Back to Mardy Fish for a moment.  I didn’t give him much of a chance against Del Potro and he pulled that out, so who knows?  Still, I love it that Mardy is in the semis.  If he wins tomorrow, he’ll be in the top ten, a major goal of his.  I don’t know what the weather conditions will be for their afternoon match.  Today it was just plain a bitch for Sharapova and Petkovic.  The wind was constant and strong, it was extremely hot and humid.  Petko played a great first set and then just went away.  So Maria is in the final, and will be in the top ten for the first time in over two years.

She’ll play either Azarenka or Zvonareva who are doing battle as we speak.  God help us if it’s Victoria because she shrieks as loud as Maria.  Vera is quiet.  Please win Vera, tonight and Saturday.

The stadium looks different on television than it does in person.  On tv, it looks huge and kind of stretched out.  Actually, it’s a good size but still feels intimate.  As I wrote earlier, I like it the best of the three large tennis stadiums in the U.S.

I’m going to check on Vera and Victoria, then catch some sleep.  Big tennis tomorrow.

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no more fooling around

Posted on January 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

It gets down to the final few days and all of a sudden, I’m suffering tennis withdrawal.  Whaddya mean, there’s no live tennis on tonight?  But since we can’t have this going on week in, week out in Melbourne or any place else, it has to diminish and then end.

So the semifinal match between Andy Murray and David Ferrer was well worth watching.  Ferrer surprised everyone by winning the first set, Murray the heavy favorite to win and not looking much like it at that point.  But one of the great challenges in these really big matches is to figure out another game plan if the one you came out with isn’t working, and Andy is good at this.  He has lots of possibilities to choose, which in one way can handicap him but at times like this helps him.  He can come in and finish shots off early if staying back isn’t getting it done.  He can vary it with different slices and spins and paces and all of this works against a player like Ferrer who has basically one game.  What you accomplish by varying things is you gain control.  Your opponent gets no rhythm, he doesn’t know what’s coming next so all he can do is defend and that means he can’t dictate, you do.  And if Ferrer can’t dictate, well…

Eh, voila.  Murray took it in four, winning the next three sets 7-6, 6-1, and 7-6.  It didn’t help that Ferrer has a less than impressive tiebreak record, losing a few more than he’s won.  Neither tiebreak was close, Murray had a handful of set points, and then match points.

The women’s final between Kim Cliijsters and Li Na went three sets with Kim the winner.  Li Na won the first set pretty convincingly 6-3.  It looked like Kim didn’t have a plan and Li Na did.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her take the second set and walk off with the whole shebang.  But in a match rife with breaks of serve, Kim held her serve in a long multi deuce game at 2-3 in the second set and from that point on she took charge.  And like Murray, she won because she could problem solve on the court and change it up and because she also has a large number of tools from which to choose.  In the third set, Li Na was getting upset by the crowd calling out and by the camera flashes.  When a player is being distracted in this way in a match of this magnitude, you know something is off.  You simply have to focus on the tennis, no matter what, if you want to have a chance of winning.  A player of Kim’s talent and experience and success sees that kind of behavior from her opponent and it just gives her even more advantage.

So Kim finally feels, as she said in her articulate comments at the award ceremony afterwards, she has earned the right to be called Aussie Kim.  The nickname has been hers for nearly a decade, first proffered when she was Lleyton Hewitt’s fiance.  As is well known now, she didn’t marry him.  She went on to marry Brian, an American, and have their daughter Jada.  Lleyton married an Aussie girl and well known actress, Bec, and they have two children themselves.  Life goes on.   But now with her first and possibly only Aussie championship, she will still and always be Aussie Kim.  On her own terms.

Li Na is already a star in China and her success will only spur the games’ development in the world’s most populous country.  She had a great tournament by any measure.  We all got to know her better and she endeared herself to all with her refreshing honesty and sense of humor.  Whether she will win a Grand Slam title remains to be seen, and it will make it interesting in the next three majors.  She’ll certainly be a serious contender.

As for the last match remaining, the men’s final between Murray and Djokovic, it should be great.  Every chance it will go five sets and be close and hard fought.  These two are a whole new rivalry.  They know each other since they were juniors and are a week apart in age.  Novak won the Australian Open a few years back, Murray has yet to gain a Grand Slam and the entire weight of British history is once again on his back, the famous seventy five year drought.  Once he hit the semis, the British press came to Melbourne in droves and there’s certainly a strong chance their long travels will be rewarded.

It’s almost impossible to call this one, but here’s a new factor.  The weather, which is generally an issue in Melbourne, has really not been for the whole tournament.  It’s been cool some of the time, and even the warm days haven’t been hot, never mind brutal.  But tomorrow it’s supposed to hit 100 degrees and it should be warm in Rod Laver for the evening match.  I’ll be interested to see how this affects Novak whose breathing difficulties are well known, especially in heat and humidity.  That said, Novak can be sucking wind and looking like he’s all but dead and still win matches.  Still, the weather will work in Murray’s favor, I think.  And I’m going to predict he is the winner, though it’s a wobbly position I admit.

It really will be, as it always is in tennis, a case of the best man wins on the day.  We get to stay up very late or get up very early depending on where you live and drink the appropriate accompanying beverages and witness the battle.  Savor it, it’s the last match of the Aussie Open!

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