Nick Bollettieri @NickBollettieri
@MariaSharapova only knows one way to play- hit the ball as hard as you can.
Maria Sharapova defeated Victoria Azarenka in three sets. Along the way she committed about twelve double faults and went through a period of not being able to find the court. But in the end she defeated Azarenka who looked painfully out of place on the terre battue.
As I mentioned before Sharapova went to Spain and worked on her clay movement. That was the difference between her and Azarenka today. How long will it be before Victoria Azarenka takes some time to go to Spain and work on her movement? And how long will players trained in the United States have to go elsewhere to learn how to play on the dirt? Sloane Stephens has already done it. The USTA Player Development people can try and make the coaches at its facilities see the light but unless things have changed radically that continues to be an uphill battle. Any second now a Time Lord will take tennis back to the glory days of wooden racquets and the domination of the Tennis Axis countries. Or will it be the Wayback machine that will do the trick?
As for the other finalist Serena Williams came as close as humanly possible to playing a perfect match. She wasn't playing a Qualifier or someone granted a Wild Card into the main draw. She was playing the WTA #5, Sara Errani. Every player has a bad day but Errani played like someone who had just wandered in off the street and was handed a racquet and told to play the top woman in the world.
There was a lot of talk about what it meant for Errani, who has never won a major, and until this week had never defeated anyone in the top five, to now be a member of the top five. There will be more discussion after today's match. When a top five player tosses in a serve of 49mph everyone is entitled to ask what the hell is going on in the WTA. I mean I could probably throw in a 49mph serve.
Don't get me wrong Errani has worked hard and made the best of what she has. No one expects her to be a flame thrower especially since she is diminutive but come on. Some are trying to say she's the David Ferrer of women's tennis. I don't agree with that at all. When pundits and people who are paid to have opinions start making that kind of reach you know shit is raggedy.
At any rate the Number One seed will play the Number Two seed Saturday. It should be an interesting match.
2 comments:
Love the reference to Time Lords. I was briefly a fan of "Dr. Who" back when the guy with the scarf played him. Some of the schlockier episodes still give me shivers.
As for the tennis part of your post, I am reminded of the 2nd movie version of "The Hulk," the one starring Ed Norton. He has a lot of lines in that movie when he is human, but as the Hulk he has exactly one line, disdainful and succinct: "Hulk crush." Serena crush.
I almost didn't use the Dr Who reference but it just sounded right. I fell in love with David Tennant's Doctor and never warmed up to the guy who replaced him. I guess I'm not alone since he's leaving after the Christmas Special.
Even now with the Final coming up in a few hours I can't believe how Serena played in the semi. In the zone doesn't begin to describe it. Unbelievable? Amazing? I'm sure Errani won't forget that for a long time.
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