Saturday, January 10, 2009

Stosur melts down in first round in Sydney

All I had was an electronic scoreboard, but what happened to Sam Stosur in her first Medibank International round against top Serena Williams was pretty obvious. The two had quite a go at each other, with numerous breaks of serve, then Stosur found herself serving at 3-6, 7-6, 5-4, 40-0. She double-faulted on the first match point, lost the second, double-faulted the third, lost the fourth, and was then broken.

All was not lost, however: Stosur then had three break points against the top seed when Williams served at 5-all. But Williams saved them all and held for 6-5, and--though Stosur did save one match point--Williams defeated her, 6-3, 6-7, 7-5.

Not to take anything away from Serena, who manages to get herself out of one tight spot after another, but Stosur apparently went to pieces just when she was about to have a big win. Let's hope that this choke is related to her making her slow return to action, and nothing more serious.

4 comments:

Todd Spiker said...

Hmmm, I remember Stosur having a similar meltdown against Vaidisova at Wimbledon last year. She was a point away from a 3-6/6-0/4-0 lead, with Vaidisova looking like she desired to do anything but play anymore. But Stosur couldn't close it out, gave Vaidisova undeserved life, and ended up losing the match.

That was the one where, after it was all over, the British TV commentator said, "Nicole Vaidisova won the match... but don't ask me how."

Anonymous said...

stosur had a sitter volley on the 4th match point, and missed it very wide. She also made bad errors on her break points, and i thought "she can't get away with giving serena williams all of these chances"

Serena, mind you, was not really trying at the beginning of the third, after some atrocious umpiring when serena served for the match at 6-5 in the second, where he missed a let cord.

Nevertheless, this is the one that got away for stosur

Diane said...

You're right, Todd--I'd forgotten all about that Vaidisova match at Wimbledon.

That must have been difficult to watch, David, regardless of whom you wanted to win.

I guess we can expect more choking from Stosur.

Anonymous said...

I hope to see no more choking from her. Hopefully, despite the choke and the loss,she takes some good confidence from this match