Armchair Slammer – French Open, Week 2
Day 9 – Round 4
The last of the Round 4 matches saw Maria Sharapova eventually hit through Radwanska in a hard fought straight sets victory. In places she showed her champion’s mentality, but at other times, she seemed to struggle to find the court with a pair of binoculars! A match that swung from one player to the other, but Maria set herself up to meet Andrea Petkovic, who also had a few challenges to overcome in her match against Maria Kirilenko.
Whilst MaSha and Petko wanted to do it the hard way, Victoria Azarenka comparatively strolled through her round for the loss of just five games.
Na Li had a rougher ride in her encounter with Petra Kvitova. Having seen Kvitova in the Wimbledon Semi-finals last year, this girl is fearless… and she was the faster out of the blocks, taking the first set 6-2. Li started to gain her advantage as Kvitova lost some of that opening firepower, taking the second set, and yet was down 0-3 in the decider. It is a measure of Li’s experience and maturity that she then reeled off 6 straight games to book herself into the quarterfinals.
Day 10 – Quarter Finals
The story of the day was Bartoli enjoying the love of the crowd against former French Open winner Svetlana Kuznetsova. A day of complicated weather, and (over) enthusiastic crowd, with the first set going to a tie-break, in Bartoli’s favour.
It took her a couple of attempts to serve out the second set, eventually taking it 6-4 and making it to the semis for the first time.
However, the story so very nearly was the downing of the defending champion – Schiavone seemingly asleep on her feet in the first set with pavlyuchenkova dishing out a breadstick. A tighter set in the second, but still with Schiavonne looking out of sorts and finding herself down 1-4 and in danger of exiting, and being asked to leave the trophy at the door on her way out. Schiavone dug deep and started to round out her games, eventually taking the second set 7-5.
In the ascendency, Schiavone continued on a roll, but Pavlyuchenkova refused to go quietly, and Schiavone fought through to eventually take the decider 7-5.
Day 11 – Quarter finals
After almost coming unstuck at the hands of Kvitova, Na Li overcame a tricky first set against Azarenka and secured a more comfortable straight set victory. Azarenka didn’t play badly but somehow failed to capitalise on her chances, and yet again waits to advance past the Quarterfinal stage in a Slam.
Imperious doesn’t even begin to describe Sharapova’s start in the Quarter Final – bagelling Andrfea Petkovic who hardly seemed to be on the court in the first set. In fact she was absent from the coirt for a fair while before the start of the second set, but seemed to come out with a bit more verve about her in the second set. However, to no avail, as Sharapova took Petkorazzi out for the loss of just three games.
Day 12 – Semis
What a difference a day makes. The confident, forceful nd dominant Sharapova who simply steamrollered Petkovic into submission was nowhere to be seen in the first semi-final. Struggling with conditions, and error counts alike allowing Li to expose Sharapova’s self proclaimed lack of movement and she manoeuvered Maria like a chess piece!
Sharapova seemed to settle a bit in the second set, but Li played a patient game and eventually ground her down to seal her place in her second Slam final of the year.
The match-up of the day had to be the defending champion against the last French woman standing. Bartoli’s crazy use of angles, idiosyncratic jumps, leaps, bounces and shadow swings… against a superlative clay court practitioner.
The momentum just couldn’t quite take Marion through, and Schiavone’s style of play, and her ability to mix up her shots began to create holes in Marion’s game – breaking and taking the first set comfortably 6-3. Although maybe encouraged with an early break in the second set, at 3-3 Schiavone steadied the ship and closed down Bartoli’s options, again taking the set 6-3. But Marion gave the French crowd something to really get behind in the closing stages of the tournament, and having been a Wimbledon finalist, it will be interesting to see what she will do on the grass.
Day 14: The Final
More potential history to be made – Schiavone to claim a back to back defence of her championship – the first since Henin achieved the same in 2006 (herself, emulating Graf’s achievement in 1996); Li would be the first woman to win a Grand Slam if she could win here.
Both started toe to toe – giving as good as they got, until Li took a break to go up 3-2. Things settled with serve until Li was serving for the set at 5-4 pushing Schiavone back and closing down her ability to move around the court.
Li capitalised on her momentum and broke Schiavone in the first game of the second set and consolidated immediately with a hold.
Schiavone dug in deep and literally clawed her way back to a position of 4-4. Her serving started to work for her, and she was able to move about the court a little more freely, establishing a bit more control.
Controversy struck at 6-5 in Schiavone’s favour, where a possible long strike from Li landed on or close to the line. Schiavone indicated it was out with her racquet, but the umpire (having come down from the chair) disagreed, taking the second set into a tiebreak.
Schiavone was obviously distracted, but take nothing away from Li – her execution in the tiebreak resulted in 7 straight points and the title.
Schiavione was gracious in defeat and Li is undoubtedly a popular winner, especially after her charming speech at theAustralian Open.
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